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[PERSIAN 
V GULF 


A MAP 

ILLUSTRATING  THE 
HISTORY OF  THE  HEBREWS 
from.  Abram  to  Moses 


uglisli  Mile 


THE  ANCIENT 


HEBREW  TRADITION 

Bs  Illustrated  the  fiftonuments 


A Protest  Against  the  Modem  School  of  Old 
Testament  Criticism 

BY 

DR.  FRITZ  HOMMEL 

PROFESSOR  OF  SEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MUNICH 

Translated  from  the  German  by 
EDMUND  MCCLURE,  M.A.,  and  LEONARD  CROSSLE 


flew  fork 

E.  & J.  B.  YOUNG  & CO. 

Cooper  Union,  Fourth  Avenue 
LONDON 

Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge 
1897 


Copyright,  1897, 


By  E.  & J. 


YOUNG  & CO. 


ELECTROTYPE©  AND  PRINTED  BY  THE 
TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


PREFACE  TO  THE  ENGLISH  EDITION 


In  view  of  the  fact  that  my  Preface  to  the  Ger- 
man edition  of  the  present  work  contains  nothing 
which  does  not  equally  appeal  to  the  English-speak- 
ing public,  it  seems  superfluous  for  me  to  prefix  any 
special  introduction  for  the  benefit  of  readers  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Channel  or  of  the  Atlantic — 
more  particularly  since  my  Assyriological  Notes  in 
the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Biblical  Archas- 
ology  and  my  contributions  to  the  Sunday  School 
Times  have  perhaps  already  made  my  name  familiar 
to  them.  I shall  merely  content  myself  by  referring 
here  to  a volume  recently  published  by  G.  Buchanan 
Gray,  which  has  only  just  come  into  my  hands,  and 
which,  though  in  many  respects  an  excellent  pro- 
duction, indicates  in  its  main  conclusion  (see  the 
“late  artificial  creation  of  some  of  the  most  striking 
characteristics  in  the  Proper  Names1  of  the  Priestly 
Code,”  cf.  the  summaries  on  pp.  194  and  207  et  seq.) 
a distinctly  retrograde  movement  when  compared 
with  Nestle’s  work.  The  investigations  recorded  in 
the  present  volume,  based  as  they  are  on  material 
obtained  from  the  inscriptions,  furnish  a sufficient 
reply  to  Gray’s  contention.  “ External  Evidence  ” 
must  be  the  banner  under  which  all  students  of  Old 
Testament  Literature  are  to  range  themselves  in  the 
future. 

Fritz  Hommel. 

Maderno , La  go  di  Garda , 

April  14,  1897. 


1 Studies  in  Hebrew  Proper  Nanies  : London,  1896. 


TRANSLATORS’  NOTE 


The  Proper  names — other  than  Biblical — cited  in  the  text  are 
given,  as  a rule,  in  the  form  adopted  by  Prof.  Hommel,  but 
it  has  been  deemed  advisable  to  substitute  for  his  representa- 
tive of  the  letter  Tsade , the  more  familiar  ts , and  for  the  Kheth , 
“ Kh  ” instead  of  “ Ch.”  Biblical  Proper  names  are  given  for 
the  most  part  in  the  form  they  assume  in  the  Revised  Version  of 
the  Old  Testament,  but  the  Hebrew  yod  is  rendered  by  y and  not 
j,  (as  in  “ Yahveh”),  except  in  a few  instances  where  common 
usage  has  secured  the  permanence  of  the  latter  letter. 


PREFACE 


For  years  past,  I have  been  convinced  that  the 
question  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Ancient  Hebrew 
tradition  could  not  be  finally  decided,  until  the 
Hebrew  personal  names  found  in  the  Old  Testament 
had  first  been  exhaustively  compared  with  other 
contemporary  names  of  similar  formation,  and  care- 
fully checked  by  them ; and  that  all  that  was  needed 
was  the  hand  of  an  expert  to  disclose  the  treasures 
hitherto  concealed  in  them,  and  to  set  forth  the 
evidence  they  contain  in  such  clear  and  convincing 
fashion  as  to  render  all  further  discussion  impossible. 
Twenty-one  years  ago,  Eberhard  Nestle,1  in  a valu- 
able work  which  still  retains  its  place  in  the  estima- 
tion of  scholars,  endeavoured  to  use  the  personal 
names  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a touch-stone  by 
which  to  test  the  authority  of  Hebrew  tradition. 
Nestle  correctly  divided  Hebrew  personal  names 
into  three  main  groups,  corresponding  to  the  three 
stages  of  evolution  observable  in  the  religion  of  the 
Old  Testament.  In  the  first,  he  placed  names  com- 
, pounded  with  El  (God) ; in  the  second  those  belong- 
ing to  the  period  between  Joshua  and  Solomon  (or 

1 Die  israelitischen  Eigennamen  nach  Hirer  religions- geschichtlichen 
Bedeutung , Haarlem  1876. 


VI 


PREFACE 


Elijah),  in  which  the  divine  name  Yahveh  comes  to 
occupy  a favoured  place  beside  El,  the  name  of  the 
Canaanite  deity  Baal  (Lord)  being  subsequently 
added,  and  lastly,  the  names  of  the  monarchical 
period,  containing  almost  without  exception  the 
element  Yahveh  (Yo,  Yahu  or  Yah),  and  thus  bear- 
ing witness  to  the  permanent  victory  of  Yahveh 
over  Baal.  Moreover,  in  his  explanation  of  the  an- 
cient Hebrew  equivalents  of  the  divine  name  El, 
viz.  Abi  = my  father,  Ammi  = my  uncle,  Nestle  was 
not  far  wide  of  the  mark.1  Indeed,  this  attempt  of 
Nestle’s  might  have  found  acceptance,  as  a solution 
of  the  Pentateuch  problem,  had  not  Wellhausen 
roundly  asserted  that  the  personal  names  of  the 
Mosaic  period  to  be  found  in  the  Priestly  Code,  had 
been  deliberately  manufactured  in  later  times  after 
an  earlier  pattern,  and  that  their  testimony  was  con- 
sequently worthless.  The  question  was  thus  left  in 
very  much  the  same  position  as  before. 

One  of  the  main  objects,  therefore,  which  I have 
kept  before  me  in  writing  the  present  book,  has  been 
to  adduce  external  evidence  (i.e.  from  contemporary 
inscriptions)  to  show  that  even  from  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham onwards  personal  names  of  the  characteristic- 
ally Mosaic  type  were  in  actual  use  among  a section 
of  the  Semites  of  Western  Asia,  and  that  it  is  conse- 
quently useless  to  talk  any  longer  of  a later  post- 
exilic  invention.  On  the  contrary,  the  theory  of  their 
evolution  put  forward  by  Nestle  is  confirmed  and 
corroborated  in  every  direction.  The  great  im- 

1 Cf.  more  especially  pp.  182  et  seq.  (particularly  p.  187,  note  3,  con- 
trasted with  p.  50)  of  Nestle’s  book. 


PREFACE 


Vll 


portance  of  its  subject-matter  must  be  my  excuse 
for  entering,  in  Chapter  III.,  into  what  may  at  first 
sight  seem  excessive  detail.  This  chapter  supplies 
the  basis  of  my  whole  argument,  and  it  was  there- 
fore necessary  to  examine  the  material  contained  in 
it  from  as  many  different  points  of  view  as  possible. 
Just  as  in  Chapter  II.  (the  History  of  Palestine  be- 
fore the  time  of  Abraham)  I had  to  prepare  the  way 
for  the  later  historical  chapters  (the  4th  and  subse- 
quent chapters),  in  order  to  help  the  reader  to  a 
proper  understanding  of  that  part  of  the  history  of 
Israel  which  begins  with  Abraham,  so  too,  in  Chap- 
ter III.,  it  was  necessary  to  explain  as  fully  as  pos- 
sible the  peculiar  system  of  name-formation  in  vogue 
among  the  earliest  Arabs — to  which  race  the  He- 
brews of  that  time  belonged — and  to  emphasize  the 
important  lessons  which  it  has  to  teach  the  student 
of  religious  history.  On  the  other  hand,  this  chap- 
ter afforded  me  an  opportunity,  which  I could  not 
allow  to  pass,  of  completing  the  evidence  in  support 
of  a fact  of  the  utmost  historical  importance,  namely, 
the  Arabian  origin  of  the  dynasty  which  occupied 
the  throne  of  Babylon  in  the  time  of  Abraham.  Be- 
fore going  any  farther,  therefore,  I must  ask  my 
readers  not  to  allow  themselves  to  be  deterred  by 
the  array  of  personal  names  — to  each  of  which  I 
have  been  careful  to  add  a translation — which  they 
will  find  in  Chapter  III.,  but  rather  to  peruse  it  with 
particular  attention  before  proceeding  farther. 
Even  those  who  are  not  acquainted  with  Hebrew 
will  be  able  to  understand  it,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  present  volume  is  primarily  addressed 


viii 


PREFACE 


to  the  theologian  and  the  archaeologist ; these  latter 
will  find  themselves  on  what  has  long  been  familiar 
ground  to  them,  in  the  company  of  old  acquaint- 
ances, such  as  Khammurabi  and  other  similar  per- 
sonages. I look  forward  to  the  time  when  every 
enlightened  reader  of  the  Bible  will  also  be  some- 
thing of  an  archaeologist : in  England  and  America 
this  is  much  more  generally  the  case  than  in  Ger- 
many, a fact  which  is  proved  by  the  large  circula- 
tion attained  by  popular  scientific  works  on  Assyriol- 
ogy  and  the  literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  such 
as  those  of  Sayce  and  Maspero,  etc. 

For  the  rest,  the  Table  of  Contents  appended  be- 
low (p.  xiii.)  will  convey  the  best  idea  of  the  subjects 
dealt  with  in  this  volume.  In  addition  to  those  por- 
tions which  bear  on  the  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch, 
this  work  contains  such  a mass  of  evidence  from  the 
inscriptions — throwing  new  light  on  the  history  of 
religion  and  on  sacred  archaeology — that  even  those 
who  may  consider  that  I have  failed  in  my  main 
purpose,  will  still  find  plenty  of  material  which  they 
cannot  afford  to  treat  with  indifference,  or  explain 
away.  But  truth  must  in  the  end  prevail.  The 
monuments  speak  with  no  faltering  tongue,  and 
already  I seem  to  see  signs  of  the  approach  of  a new 
era  in  which  men  will  be  able  to  brush  aside  the 
cobweb  theories  of  the  so-called  “ higher  critics  ” of 
the  Pentateuch,  and,  leaving  such  old-fashioned 
errors  behind  them,  attain  to  a clearer  perception 
of  the  real  facts.  The  gales  of  spring  are  already 
beginning  to  sweep  across  the  fields  that  have  so 
long  lain  ice-bound.  I seem  to  trace  their  influence 


PREFACE 


IX 


in  the  effect  produced  on  every  unprejudiced  mind 
by  that  marvellous  book  of  James  Robertson’s  on 
the  pre-prophetic  religion  of  Israel,1  of  which  no  less 
a personage  than  the  late  August  Dillmann  declared 
that  it  hit  the  nail  right  on  the  head.  In  the  same 
category  I would  place  a paper  from  the  pen  of  the 
Swedish  scholar  S.  A.  Fries,  which  has  only  just 
come  under  my  notice,  entitled,  “ Were  the  Israel- 
ites ever  in  Egypt?  ”2  in  which  he  puts  forward  the 
view  set  forth  in  the  present  volume.  He  holds  that 
certain  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  had  already  settled  in 
Palestine  before  the  time  of  Moses ; that  the  land  of 
Goshen  included  also  the  southern  portion  of  Judah ; 
that  Moses  (“  influenced,  as  he  is  inclined  to  think, 
by  the  speculative  ideas  of  the  Egyptian  priests  ”) 
transformed  the  ancient  divine  name  Yo  or  Yahu 
into  Yahveh ; that  Hebron,  which  had  from  time 
immemorial  been  connected  with  Tanis  by  com- 
munity of  interests  (cf.  the  well-known  passage  in 
Num.  xiii.  22),  owed  its  new  name  to  the  Khabiri 
(prior  to  this  it  was  known  as  Kirjath  Arba) ; and 
finally,  that  the  49th  chapter  of  Genesis,  even  if  it 
were  not  composed  by  Jacob  himself,  must  at  any 
rate  be  of  pre- Mosaic  origin.3  Neither  has  Fries 
failed  to  note  W.  Max  Muller’s  contention  that  the 

1 The  Early  Religion  of  Israel,  Edinburgh  and  London,  1890. 

2 In  the  Egyptological  journal  the  Sphinx , vol.  I pt.  4 (Upsala  1897), 
pp.  207-— 221  ; this  did  not  appear  until  the  index  of  the  present  volume 
was  ready  for  press. 

3 Fries  draws  attention  to  a very  important  point  which  I had  over- 
looked, viz.  that  in  1 Chron.  vii.  20,  we  have  an  ancient  pre-Mosaic  tra- 
dition dealing  with  a predatory  raid  made  by  the  Ephraimites  into  Pal- 
estine (and  therefore  from  the  Land  of  Goshen). 


X 


PREFACE 


tribe  of  Asser  (Asher)  must  have  been  installed  in 
the  territory  ascribed  to  it  in  later  times  as  far  back 
as  the  time  of  Seti  I. ; he  will  be,  therefore,  all  the 
more  likely  to  agree  with  what  I have  said  of  Heber 
and  Malki-el  (end  of  Chap.  VII.),  and  of  the  Land  of 
Ashur  in  southern  Palestine  (Chap.  VIII.). 

Many  of  the  conclusions  at  which  I have  arrived 
are  of  even  wider  importance  than  I had  supposed 
when  I first  put  them  on  paper  ; e.g.  the  fact  on 
which  I have  so  frequently  laid  stress,  that  the  Is- 
raelites in  the  time  of  Abraham  to  Joshua  spoke  a 
dialect  of  Arabic,  and  that  it  was  not  till  after  the 
conquest  of  the  region  west  of  Jordan  that  they 
adopted  the  Canaanite  tongue.  In  connection  with 
it  stands  my  other  conclusion  that  the  earliest  Israel- 
ite traditions,  and  undoubtedly  the  Mosaic  law  as 
well,  must  originally  have  been  set  down  in  the 
Minaean  script  (or  at  any  rate  in  characters  more 
nearly  related  to  the  latter  than  to  the  Canaanite 
alphabet).  This  assumption  (in  regard  to  the  Arabic 
character  of  the  earliest  Hebrew),  which  is  a neces- 
sary corollary  to  my  researches  in  regard  to  the 
early  personal  names,  clears  up  more  than  one 
doubtful  point  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage; it  throws  a fresh  light  on  the  much -dis- 
cussed alternative  forms  of  the  word  “ anoki”  and 
“ ani”  [ = I ],  the  first  of  these  being  the  Canaanite 
form,  while  the  second  (which  belongs  for  the  most 
part  to  the  Priestly  Code)  is  the  ancient  Hebrew 
equivalent  of  the  pronoun  (cf.  Arab-Aram.  ana  = I).1 

1 And  here  the  word  must  have  been  borrowed  from  Babylonian,  cf. 
Babyl.  anaku  — I ; all  the  Western  Semitic  races  must  originally  have 


PREFACE 


XI 


I take  this  opportunity  of  urging  the  younger 
school  of  Old  Testament  theologians  to  abandon 
their  barren  speculations  in  regard  to  the  source  of 
this  or  that  fraction  of  a verse,  and  rather  to  devote 
their  youthful  energies  to  the  far  more  profitable 
study  of  the  Assyro-Babylonian  and  South  Arabian 
inscriptions,  in  order  that  they  may  be  able,  at  first 
hand,  to  place  the  output  of  these  absolutely  inex- 
haustible mines  of  knowledge  at  the  service  of  Bib- 
lical students  ; nothing  can  be  more  deplorable  than 
to  find  a scholar  persistently  devoting  his  most  im- 
portant labours  to  second-hand  sources  of  informa- 
tion. There  are  hundreds  of  contract  tablets  of  the 
time  of  Abraham,  any  one  of  which  may  contain 
some  interesting  find — such  as  the  name  Ai-kalabu 
( v . infra  pp.  iio  et  seq.)  or  Jacob-el  (Ya'kubu-ilu,  v. 
p.  294), — which  lie  still  unedited  in  the  museums  of 
Europe  ; and  the  importance  of  the  Minaeo-Sabaean 
inscriptions  to  the  study  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
shown— apart  from  the  numerous  examples  adduced 
in  this  volume— by  the  fact  that  expressions  in  the 
Priestly  Code,  such  as  bara  = to  create  (Gen.i.  1), 
or  religious  terms  such  as  berith  1 — covenant,  agree- 
ment, find  their  closest  parallels — not  in  the  later 
Aramaic,  but  in  South  Arabian.  I earnestly  hope 
that  Eduard  Glaser,  the  indefatigable  explorer  of 
the  “ Arabian  Empire,”  will  not  oblige  us  to  wait 

used  the  word  ana  for  “I  ” (an  abbreviation  from  the  primitive  Semitic 
anaku-ya , cf.  the  plural  anakhna). 

1 Cf.  the  Sabaean  bara' a = to  build,  lay  the  foundations  of,  and  beriti 
^Ethiopian  ( i.e . originally  Hadramautic,  Z.D.M.G.  xlvi.  pp.  536  et  seq.\ 
ebret  — alternating  service  or  function. 


xii  PREFACE 

much  longer  before  he  consents  to  open  his  treas- 
ure-chambers. He  was  the  first  to  assign  to  the 
Minaeans  their  true  place  in  history,  and  thus  rein- 
forced Sayce  in  his  epoch-making  identification  of 
the  name  of  the  Babylonian  king  Ammi-zaduga  with 
the  Minaean  Ammi-tsaduka ; he  is,  however,  very 
chary  of  his  inscriptions  (apart  from  the  originals 
which  he  brought  back  with  him  to  Europe),  and 
only  allows  us  to  examine  them  piece-meal.1  And 
yet  no  further  addition  of  any  real  value  can  be 
made  to  our  knowledge  of  South  Arabian  antiquity 
until  the  material  so  far  available  has  been  made 
better  known.  Glaser’s  inscriptions  consist  of  hun- 
dreds of  casts  and  numerous  copies,  but  they  are 
unfortunately  inaccessible  to  all  so  long  as  they  re- 
main buried  in  his  cases.  A great  benefit  would  be 
conferred  on  science,  and  on  the  study  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  particular,  if  these  documents,  which 
no  one  but  a Glaser  could  have  ferreted  out  and 
procured,  were  to  be  placed  in  some  museum  where 
they  would  be  available  for  general  use. 

1 Cf.  certain  later  Sabaean  insciipiions,  edited  and  annotated  in  a 
most  masterly  manner  by  Glaser  in  his  recent  work,  Die  Abessinier  in 
Arabien  und  Afrika , Munich,  1895. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 


Introduction Page  i 

The  view  of  the  Evolution  of  the  History  of  Israel  presented 
(i)  by  tradition,  (2)  by  the  “ higher  critics ’’—The  “sources”  of 


the  Old  Testament — Deuteronomy  quoted  by  Hosea— The  late 
date  assigned  by  Wellhausen  to  Deuteronomy  and  the  “ Priestly 
Code”  — Amos  v.  25  — Obsolete  expressions  found  in  the 
“ Priestly  Code” — -Green  and  Sayce— Application  of  the  Critical 
methods  formulated  by  Meyer  to  the  “ Priestly  Code.” 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Early  History  of  Palestine Page  28 

Assyriology  and  Egyptology — Tel  el-Amarna — Gudea’s  1 re- 
lations with  the  “Countries  of  the  West”— The  Nimrod  Epos 
and  Arabia — The  later  kings  of  Ur  and  the  Ndr  Bel — Elam  and 
Arabia — The  kings  of  Larsa — The  Arabian  dynasty  of  Khammu  • 
rabi,  its  conquest  of  Larsa  and  Elam  and  its  supremacy  over 
Palestine  — The  Pharaohs  of  the  Pyramid  Period  and  the 
Sinaitic  Peninsula  — Campaign  against  the  Heru-sha  — The 
“Middle  Empire ’’—Adventures  of  Sinuhit — The  37  Asiatics  on 
the  Tomb  of  Khnumhotpu — Babylonians  and  Western  Semites. 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Arabs  in  Babylonia  before  and  in  the  Time 
of  Abraham Page  56 

The  Ndr  Bel  and  Martu — Arab  personal  names  under  the 
Khammurabi  Dynasty — Babylonian  Nomenclature— The  Baby- 


1 Evidence  has  now  been  obtained  from  contemporary  inscriptions  to  prove  that 
even  the  early  kings  of  Agadi  (Akkad),  Sargon  and  Naram-Sin  (c.  3500  b.c.)  made 
expeditions  not  only  to  Arabia  (Magan ),  but  to  Martu  as  well. 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


Ionian  Pantheon — The  South  Arabian  Inscriptions — The  Arabian 
Pantheon — South  Arabian  Nomenclature  — Religious  signifi- 
cance of  both  Babylonian  and  South  Arabian  personal  names — 
Arabian  origin  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty,  Pognon,  Sayce, 
etc. — Conclusive  evidence  of  the  Arabian  form  of  all  the  names 
of  the  kings — Arabian  names  of  private  individuals  under  the 
Khammurabi  Dynasty — Shem  and  Yahveh — Shaddi — Ai  or  Ya — 
Yah. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Chronology  of  the  Time  of  Abraham Page  118 

Previous  attempts  to  fix  the  date  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty 
— The  small  tablet  containing  lists  of  the  two  first  Dynasties — 
The  List  of  Kings — Dynasties  A and  B contemporaneous — The 
Biblical  Chronology — Apocryphal  Character  of  Dynasty  B — Its 
founder  Ilu-ma  alone  historical — Gulkishar — The  Biblical  Chro- 
nology again — Pieser’s  Theory — Arabian  Origin  of  the  Assyrian 
Nation. 


CHAPTER  V 

Abraham  and  Khammurabi Page  146 

The  narrative  in  Gen.  xiv.  — The  Melchizedek  Episode  — 
Quoted  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews — 'Abd-khiba  of  Jerusalem 
— Proposed  emendation  of  Gen.  xiv.  17 — 24 — The  political  back- 
ground in  Gen.  xiv. — View  taken  of  it  by  the  “higher  critics” 
— Inscriptions  of  Kudur-Mabug  and  Eri-aku — Conquest  of  Erech 
and  Nisin — Yamutbal  (Elam)  and  Martu  —Khammurabi’s  letter 
to  Sin-idinam  ift  reference  to  Kudur-luggamar — Khammurabi’s 
victory  over  Eri-Aku  and  conquest  of  Yamutbal — The  Babylonian 
Epos  in  regard  to  Kudur-lugmal’s  devastation  of  Babylon  and 
Borsippa — Conclusions  which  we  may  draw  from  it — The  Ancient 
Babylonian  cuneiform  original  of  Gen.  xiv. — The  City  of  Malgi 
and  Assur-bel-kala’s  Ebir-nari  Inscription  (K.  3500). 


CHAPTER  VI 

Jacob  the  Aramaean Page  201 

Dillman’s  view— -Aramaic  and  Arabic — The  Achlami — Padan 
— The  land  of  Kir  and  the  Aramaean  tribes  of  Babylonia — Ur- 
Kasdim  and  the  Chaldaeans. 


CONTENTS 


XV 


CHAPTER  VII 

Palestine  in  the  Tel  el-Amarna  Period Page  213 

The  Canaanite  language  in  1400  B.C. — Canaanite  and  Phoeni- 
cian personal  names— -Arabic  names  in  South  Palestine — The 
Canaanite  religion  in  1400  B.C.— Hebrew  personal  names— The 
Land  of  Goshen — The  Israelites  did  not  lead  a mere  nomadic 
existence  there — The  Khabiri — Heber  and  Malki-el — Hebron. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Land  of  ShOr  and  the  Minaeans Page  235 

The  tribe  of  Asset*  (Asher)  and  its  territory  in  Goshen  in 
Southern  Palestine— Ashurim  and  Dedan — Shur  an  abbreviation 
of  Ashur — The  Southern  Geshur  an  abbreviation  of  Ge-Ashur 
— Ashur  and  'Eber  in  Balaam’s  “ Parables” — The  invasion  of  the 
“ Peoples  of  the  Sea”  foretold — The  Minaean  Inscription  Hal. 
535  (=  Gl.  1 1 15)  and  the  date  at  which  it  was  composed — The 
term  'Ibr  naharan — Ebir-nari — Eber  ha-nahar  (cf.  Appendix) — 
The  Epri  of  the  Egyptian  Inscriptions — The  land  of  Eshru — The 
land  of  Gari  in  the  Tel  el-Amarna  Inscriptions — Char  or  Chor — 
Ashur  in  Hosea  ix.  3 (quotation  from  Deut.)  a part  of  Goshen— 
The  Minephtah  Inscription  in  which  Israel  is  referred  to — Levi 
and  Simeon. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Time  of  Moses Page  268 

Commerce  of  the  Minaeans  and  Midianites — Midian  and  Ma'an 
Mutsran  synonymous  terms — South  Arabian  place-names  in  the 
region  east  of  Jordan— The  spelling  of  the  Mesa  Inscription  and 
of  Hebrew  based  on  Minaean  influence — Conclusion  to  be  drawn 
therefrom  in  regard  to  the  earliest  Hebrew  script— Jethro,  Priest 
of  Midian — Ancient  Arabic  expressions  in  the  “ Priestly  Code  ” 
— Egyptian  original  of  the  High  Priest’s  Breast-plate  or  khoshen 
— The  Levites  in  the  “ Priestly  Code,”  in  Deuteronomy  and  in 
Ezekiel — The  “Priestly  Code,”  in  the  time  of  the  Judges  and  of 
the  Kings — Egyptian  loan-words  in  the  Old  Testament — Arpake- 
shad  and  Ur-Kasdim — Personal  names  in  the  Book  of  Numbers. 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  X 

From  Joshua  to  David  — Retrospect  and  Conclu- 
sion  Page  302 

Distinction  between  the  Names  of  the  time  of  the  Judges  and 
those  of  the  Mosaic  Period — The  Primitive  History  in  the  Bible 
not  of  Canaanite  origin — The  Hebrew  Metrical  system  a legacy 
from  Ancient  Babylonia — The  story  of  the  Fall. 


Appendices Pages  317-326 

(a)  The  land  of  Yadi'a-ab. 

(b)  The  Divine  Name  Tstir  in  the  South  Arabian  Inscriptions 
— Purification  and  sin-offerings  prescribed  in  them. 

(c)  The  land  of  Eber  and  the  geographical  term  Ebir  Nari, 
(Eber  ha-nahar,  'Ibr  naharan)  originally  Ur-Kasdim. 


Index Page  327 

List  of  Authors  referred  to Page  347 

List  of  Biblical  Passages  referred  to Page  349 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

No  nation  of  early  times  has  had  two  such  widely 
different  versions  of  its  history  presented  to  modern 
readers  as  that  of  Israel.  If  we  may  accept  the 
almost  unanimous  verdict  of  late,  not  to  say  the 
latest,  criticism;  certain  Hebrew  tribes,  who  were 
soon  joined  by  others,  started  out,  it  is  alleged, 
from  the  Sinaitic  peninsula  about  the  year  1200  B.c., 
and  after  long  wanderings  in  the  desert,  at  length 
arrived  in  the  region  east  of  Jordan,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  their  prophet  Moses.  After  his  death  they 
crossed  the  J ordan  under  J oshua,  and  succeeded  after 
a series  of  protracted  conflicts  in  subduing  or  ex- 
terminating the  Amorite  and  Canaanite  settlers  on 
its  western  banks.  As  the  Canaanites  were,  so  the 
critics  tell  us,  in  possession  of  a higher  culture,  the 
Israelites,  who  are  represented  as  having  been  at 
that  time  a race  of  semi-barbarous  nomads,  were  real- 
ly conquered  by  the  .more  advanced  civilization  of 
their  foes,  a nemesis  which  frequently  dogs  the  foot- 
steps of  the  victorious  barbarian,  if  we  may  credit 
the  lessons  of  history.  The  new-comers,  as  we  are 


2 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


informed  by  the  critics,  appropriated  the  holy  places 
of  the  Canaanitish  heroes,  such  as  that  of  Abraham 
at  Hebron,  or  that  of  Jacob  at  Bethel,  and  came  in 
the  course  of  centuries  to  regard  them  as  so  entirely 
their  own,  that  later  on  it  became  a firmly  estab- 
lished article  of  popular  belief  that  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob  were  the  earliest  ancestors  of  the  Hebrew 
race.  The  laws  traditionally  ascribed  to  Moses,  it 
is  contended,  first  came  into  existence  either  during 
or  after  the  monarchical  period,  while  of  the  prophets 
only  a certain  number,  such  as  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel,  are  allowed  by  the  critics 
to  retain  the  place  so  long  accorded  to  them. 

This  is  a brief  account  of  the  evolution  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  Israelites  during  the  past  two  decades, 
according  to  the  results  of  investigations  associated 
with  the  name  of  Wellhausen  and  others,  and  put 
forward  in  Stade’s 1 well-known  work  on  the  subject. 
The  representatives  of  the  orthodox  opponents  of 
this  school  are  being  gradually  reduced  to  a minority, 
and  the  new  views,  especially  among  the  younger 
disciples,  are  so  triumphantly  pressed  home,  that  an 
attempt  to  return  to  the  old  line  seems,  especially  to 
the  lay  mind,  as  only  worthy  of  a pitying  smile  in  the 
face  of  the  assured  position  of  the  critics.  To  real- 
ize the  present  position  we  have  but  to  listen  to  the 
words  of  one  of  the  most  strenuous  defenders  of  the 
so-called  “ modern  ” critics  of  the  Pentateuch,  Pro- 
fessor C.  H.  Cornillof  Konigsberg,  in  the  prospectus 
of  his  Der  Israelitische  Prophetismus  (a  little  volume 
intended  for  the  general  Reader)— words  which  I 

1 Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel , 2nd  ed. : Berlin,  Grote. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


3 


purposely  transcribe  in  full : “ Scarcely  any  branch 
of  scientific  study  has,  during  the  last  few  genera- 
tions, undergone  such  a revolution  as  that  dealing 
with  the  Old  Testament.  A rigidly  critical  attitude 
has  taken  the  place  of  the  traditional  view  of  the 
history  of  the  Hebrew  religion.  Its  various  stages 
are  now  regarded  as  steps  in  a process  of  organic 
evolution.  Individual  facts  are  assigned  their  true 
place  in  the  general  scheme,  and  receive  their  proper 
meaning  and  explanation  in  connection  therewith. 
This  organic  view  of  the  Old  Testament  was  at  first 
received  with  distrust  and  aversion,  even  by  experts, 
for  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  make  up  one’s  mind  to 
abandon  beliefs  which  have  been  accepted  without 
question  for  two  thousand  years:  gradually,  how- 
ever, owing  to  the  persuasive  power  of  its  inherent 
truth,  it  has  succeeded  in  gaining  headway  ; and, 
especially  since  the  appearance,  in  1878,  of  Well- 
hausen’s  brilliant  and  convincing  exposition  of  his 
views,1  has  entered  upon  a course  of  uninterrupted 
triumph.”  So  far  Professor  Cornill,  and  many  other 
utterances  to  the  same  effect  might  be  adduced  in 
support  of  his  position. 

It  would  seem  to  follow,  then,  that  we  must  no 
longer  date  the  commencement  of  the  history  of 
Israel  from  the  migration  into  Canaan  of  the  pious 
and  God-fearing  patriarch  Abraham  from  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees,  nor  give  credence  to  the  story  of  the  so- 
journ of  the  children  of  Israel  in  Egypt,  and  of  their 
wonderful  exodus  from  that  land  of  bondage — for  all 
this,  according  to  the  critics,  is  pure  myth,  the  poetic 

1 Geschichtc  Israels,  vol.  i.,  Prolegomena. 


4 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


invention  of  a later  period.  The  true  beginning,  it 
is  alleged,  was  the  time  of  the  “ Heroic  Legend,” 
which  includes  not  only  the  period  of  the  Judges, 
but  a part  of  the  time  of  Samuel,  and  the  early  life 
of  David.  According  to  the  critics,  it  is  only  when 
we  come  to  Solomon  and  his  successors  that  we  find 
ourselves  on  firm  historical  ground,  and  even  then 
they  would  have  us  believe  that  the  narrative  in  the 
Books  of  the  Kings  has  been  subjected  to  a biassed 
revision.  The  Bible  narrative  tells  us,  for  example, 
that  in  the  reign  of  Josiah,  one  of  the  last  kings  of 
Judah,  the  so-called  “Second  giving  of  the  Law” 
(Deuteronomy),  which  has  come  down  to  us  as  the 
Fifth  Book  of  Moses,  was  discovered  during  the  re- 
building of  the  Temple.  In  no  other  part  of  the 
Biblical  code  do  we  find  so  marked  an  insistance  on 
the  necessity  for  a single  centre  of  worship  (mean- 
ing, of  course,  Jerusalem),  and  on  the  observance  of 
moral  obligations,  as  in  this  “recapitulation  ” of  the 
Law  of  God  given  by  Moses  in  the  land  of  Moab. 
Now,  as  far  back  as  1878,  Wellhausen  declared  in  the 
most  emphatic  terms,  “ that  in  all  centres  where 
scientific  results  may  hope  for  recognition,  it  is  ad- 
mitted that  it  (Deuteronomy)  was  written  at  the  time 
in  which  it  was  discovered,  and  was  employed  as  a 
basis  for  the  reforms  introduced  by  King  Josiah.” 
In  other  words,  however  pious  the  intention  may 
have  been,  a downright  forgery  on  a grand  scale 
had  been  carried  out.  When,  therefore,  we  come 
upon  traces  of  the  influence  of  this  Deuteronomic 
code  in  the  Books  of  the  Kings  prior  to  the  time  of 
Josiah,  we  have  merely  to  assume  that  the  passages 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


5 


in  question  have  been  subjected  to  a so-called  Beu- 
teronomistic  revision.  According  to  Wellhausen, 
the  whole  of  these  passages  have  been  re-edited  to 
bring  them  into  harmony  with  Deuteronomy. 

This  view  of  the  origin  of  Deuteronomy  has  been 
very  variously  received.  It  is  significant  to  note,  that 
the  primary  effect  of  these  conclusions  was  to  pro- 
duce wide  dissension  among  theologians  themselves, 
the  official  guardians  and  expounders  of  the  sacred 
records  of  the  Bible,  dissensions  all  the  more  serious, 
since  the  post-dating  of  Deuteronomy  necessarily 
involved,  as  we  shall  learn  further  on,  the  ascription 
of  a still  later  date  to  other  parts  of  the  Pentateuch. 
The  orthodox  or  conservative  party  naturally  re- 
garded an  acceptance  of  the  new  theories  as  equiva- 
lent to  admitting  that  the  Old  Testament  is  nothing 
more,  from  beginning  to  end,  than  a tissue  of  pious 
deceptions,  an  admission  which,  of  course,  was  en- 
tirely opposed  to  their  conception  of  its  inspired 
character.  Others,  while  reverently  adhering  to 
their  belief  in  the  divine  administration,  even  un- 
der the  Old  Covenant,  felt,  at  the  same  time,  that 
they  could  not  entirely  ignore  the  main  points  of 
Wellhausen’s  arguments,  and  took  refuge  in  the 
assumption  that,  in  so  far  as  the  words  which 
were  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  earlier  authorities 
are  concerned,  the  idea  of  a code  of  literary  ethics 
was  as  foreign  to  Old  Testament  writers  as  it  was 
to  the  rest  of  antiquity ; and  that,  provided  they 
had  warrant  for  believing  that  the  matter  they 
set  down  was  in  harmony  with  the  meaning  and 
spirit  of  those  earlier  authorities,  and  that  it  was  to 


6 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


the  advantage  of  the  people  that  it  should  be  handed 
down  to  them,  they  were  justified  in  speaking  in 
their  names  (or,  as  in  the  present  instance,  in  the 
name  of  Moses).  Lastly,  there  were  those  who  pos- 
sessed no  sort  of  respect  for  tradition,  or  who  felt 
nothing  but  scorn  and  contempt  for  anything  super- 
natural, and  took  a cynical  delight  in  pressing  Well- 
hausen’s  conclusions  to  their  ultimate  consequences. 
It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  this  respect,  the  opinion 
expressed  by  a scholar  who  stands  entirely  outside 
the  clique  of  higher  critics,  an  Orientalist  whose 
work  lies  in  a totally  different  province,  Ferdinand 
Justi  of  Marburg.  In  his  popular  History  of  the 
Oriental  Peoples  of  Antiquity,  published  in  1884  by 
Grote  of  Berlin,  we  find  on  page  352  the  following 
remarks  on  the  period  immediately  subsequent  to 
the  Babylonian  Captivity  (586 — 538  B.C.): 

“ Sacred  and  profane  tradition  had  already  under- 
gone more  than  one  transformation  to  meet  changes 
in  religious  views  or  in  the  political  situation,  but 
now,  in  order  to  confer  some  show  of  authority  on 
the  poor  remnant  of  an  executive  that  had  survived 
the  Captivity,  the  falsification  of  ancient  tradition 
was  undertaken  on  a more  extensive  scale  than  ever 
before.  A fiction  was  set  on  foot  to  the  effect  that 
the  Priestly  Code  had  long  ago  been  delivered  to 
the  people  by  Moses,  either  as  a law  to  be  immedi- 
ately followed  by  them,  or  as  a rule  for  their  future 
guidance  under  new  conditions  which  Moses,  in  his 
capacity  as  prophet,  must  have  been  able  to  foresee. 
A wholesale  perversion  of  history  was  the  result ; 
the  whole  body  of  tradition  was  revised  on  theo- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


7 


cratic  lines  with  a view  to  prove  that  the  Levitical 
priesthood  and  priestly  office  had  existed  prior  to 
the  time  of  the  kings,  and  even  during  the  wander- 
ings in  the  desert ; even  the  history  of  primitive 
times,  which  teems  with  mythical  (polytheistic)  asso- 
ciations, was  distorted  in  the  interests  of  the  new 
code,  and  employed  to  strengthen  the  arguments  in 
favour  of  its  pre-existence.  The  forgers  carried  out 
their  work  without  the  slightest  regard  for  historical 
accuracy,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  asperse  the  mem- 
ory of  men  who  had  raised  the  nation  to  greatness,1 
while  they  glorified  tyrants  and  weaklings  who  had 
allowed  themselves  to  be  ruled  by  the  priests.  The 
forgery  was  too  clumsy  to  escape  detection  under  the 
searching  eye  of  the  modern  critic,  yet  sufficiently 
well  done  to  have  misled  mankind  for  centuries,  and 
to  have  induced  them  to  accept,  as  divine  ordinances, 
inventions  devised  by  Jewish  Rabbis  of  the  sixth 
and  following  centuries  before  Christ  in  order  to 
strengthen  their  own  influence.  It  was  not  until  mod- 
ern times  that  certain  Protestant  theologians,  such  as 
Ewald,  Hupfeld,  Vatke,  de  Wette,  Bleek,  Kuenen, 
Graf,  Reuss,  Noldeke,  Wellhausen,2  and  many  others, 
discovered  the  true  condition  of  affairs,  to  which  only 
the  narrow-minded  or  those  who  are  misled  by  class 
interests  can  shut  their  eyes.’’ 

1 Evidently  Justi  here  refers  to  Israelitish  kings  such  as  Ahab  and 
Joram,  the  “ tyrants  and  weaklings”  being  the  so  called  righteous  kings 
of  Judah. 

2 The  order  in  which  the  names  are  given  is  misleading.  They  should 
properly  run  as  follows  : de  Wette,  Vatke,  Georges,  Reuss,  Graf,  Kuenen, 
Noldeke,  Wellhausen,  Stade,  etc. 


8 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Professor  Justi  does  not  mince  matters,  but  his  at- 
titude is  a far  more  honest  one  than  that  of  the  tem- 
porizing theologian  who  strives  to  throw  dust  either 
in  the  eyes  of  the  public  or  in  his  own.  For,  after 
all,  black  is  black,  however  much  we  may  desire,  on 
opportunist  grounds,  to  prove  it  to  be  white. 

And  now,  many  of  my  readers  may  ask  with 
astonishment,  how,  in  the  absence  of  any  distinct 
new  documents,  it  was  possible,  within  the  space  of 
a few  decades,  for  so  radical  a change  to  take  place 
in  the  attitude  of  critics  towards  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  evolution  of  the  Hebrew  religion?  Assur- 
edly, it  was  not  brought  about  by  the  discovery  of 
any  new  monuments,  either  inscriptions  or  MSS., 
and  yet  a certain  class  of  documents,  arranged  under 
a new  system  and  considered  in  a new  light,  was 
largely  responsible  for  the  development  of  the 
theories  which  have  now  become  fashionable.  I 
refer  to  what  are  known  as  the  “sources”  of  the 
Hexateuch  (or  five  Books  of  Moses  and  Book  of 
Joshua),  which  have  been  submitted  of  late  to  in- 
creasingly strict  scientific  scrutiny.  Attention  was 
first  called  to  them  in  the  last  century  by  a French 
physician  named  Astruc;  and  at  the  present  time 
students  of  the  Old  Testament  writings  are  almost 
unanimous  in  recognizing  the  existence  of  four 
different  main  “ sources.”  There  is,  first  of  all,  the 
so-called  Priestly  Code,  which  includes  the  greater 
part  of  the  law  in  Leviticus  and  Numbers,  and  the 
detailed  description  of  the  Tabernacle  in  Exodus;  it 
is  also  traceable  here  and  there  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis — the  account  of  the  creation  in  Gen.  i.,  the 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


9 


genealogies  in  Gen.  v.,  and  several  passages  in  the 
history  of  the  patriarchs,  etc.,  etc.  being  generally 
assigned  to  it.  The  name  employed  in  this  source 
to  designate  the  Supreme  Being  up  to  Exodus  vi.  is 
not  “Yahveh,”  but  “ Elohim,”  i.e.  simply  “God.” 
Two  other  sources  of  a more  popular  nature  are  also 
readily  distinguishable  : One  of  these  is  the  so-called 
“ Jehovistic,”  in  which  God  is  always  calledYahveh 
(Jehovah  is  a later  and  corrupt  form)  ; to  this  belongs 
the  account  of  the  creation  in  Gen.  ii.,  the  story  of 
Paradise  and  the  Fall,  that  of  the  Tower  of  Babel, 
etc.  etc.,  in  short,  everything  in  the  nature  of  popu- 
lar narrative.  It  is  characterized  by  a certain 
primitive  freshness  and  vivacity  which  distinguish 
it  from  the  didactic  and  often  almost  jejune  formal- 
ism of  the  narrative  passages  in  the  Priestly  Code. 
The  other  source  of  a popular  character  runs  par- 
allel with  the  Jehovistic,  from  the  time  of  the  Patri- 
archs up  to  the  history  of  the  Exodus  and  the  Con- 
quest of  Canaan,  and  is  in  many  respects  similar 
to  it,  at  any  rate  in  its  treatment  of  the  more  im- 
portant incidents.  This  is  the  Elohistic , which  seems 
to  have  owed  its  existence  to  members  of  the 
Ephraimite  priesthood,1  and  follows  the  Priestly 

i It  is  no  mete  coincidence  that  the  two  sources  which  bear  traces  of 
priestly  origin  should  both  employ,  by  preference,  the  older  form 
“Elohim”  for  the  divine  Name.  Moreover  (thanks  mainly  to  the 
researches  of  Klostermann),  the  theory  becomes  daily  more  probable, 
that  the  narrative  portions  of  the  so-called  Priestly  Code  did  not  origi- 
nally form  part  of  an  independent  record,  but  are  the  works  of  a compiler, 
who  took  various  portions,  un'il  lately  regarded  as  peculiar  to  himself, 
from  the  Elohist  (and  this  from  Gen.  i.  onwards),  but  only  in  a revised 
and  partly  amplified  form. 


IO 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Code  in  its  avoidance  of  the  name  Jahveh  throughout 
the  pre-Mosaic  period.  As  this  source  was  amalga- 
mated with  the  Jehovistic  before  the  introduction  of 
both  into  the  Priestly  Code,  it  is  in  many  cases  no 
longer  possible  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other. 
Finally,  the  fourth  source  is  Deuteronomy  (or  fifth 
Book  of  Moses),  of  which  mention  has  already  been 
made.  In  addition  to  these  there  is  a special  legal 
division  within  the  Priestly  Code  itself  known  as 
“the  Law  of  Holiness”  (Levit.  xvii. — xxii.),  and 
in  JE  (a  convenient  symbol  used  to  indicate  the 
united  Jehovistic  and  Elohistic  narratives)  there  is 
a further  division  called  “The  Book  of  the  Cove- 
nant” (Ex.  xxi. — xxiii.). 

It  has  yet  to  be  proved,  however,  that  we  have  any 
right  to  assume  that  Deuteronomy  first  came  into 
existence  at  the  time  in  which  it  was  discovered,  i.e., 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventh  century  B.C.,  or,  in 
other  words,  some  650  years  after  the  death  of  Moses. 
And  yet  it  is  on  this  very  assumption  that  Well- 
hausen  bases  one  of  the  main  pillars  of  his  system ; 
“ in  all  centres  where  scientific  results  may  hope  for 
recognition  ” this  is  admitted,  says  Wellhausen  in  the 
Introduction  to  his  Prolegomena.  Yet  Professor 
Klostermann  has  recently  shown  most  conclusively 
that  the  narrative  of  the  discovery  of  a legal  code 
in  the  time  of  Josiah,  which  is  rightly  taken  to  re- 
fer to  Deuteronomy,  bears  the  impress  of  absolute' 
credibility,  and  consequently  excludes  the  possibility 
of  any  such  subtle  deception  as  that  predicated  by 
critics  of  the  modern  school.1  From  a single  in- 

1 Dcr  Pentateuch  (Leipzig,  1893),  pp.  92 — 100. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


II 


stance,  viz.  the  passage  in  Dent,  xxviii.  68,  I am  able 
to  prove  that  Deuteronomy  must  have  been  known 
to  the  prophets  at  least  as  early  as  the  time  of  Jotham 
and  Menahem,  about  740  B.C.,  and  was  not  lost  un- 
til later  on  during  the  long  reign  of  the  idolatrous 
king  Manasseh.  In  this  verse  there  is  a threat  that 
“ the  Lord  shall  bring  thee  into  Egypt  again  with 
ships.”  This  passage  is  twice  quoted  by  Hosea,  viz. 
Ephraim  “shall  return  to  Egypt”  (viii.  13),  im- 
mediately followed  by  (ix.  3),  “ and  they  shall  eat  un- 
clean food  in  Assyria,”  a threat  more  in  harmony 
with  the  apprehensions  of  the  time  when  the  cloud 
on  the  horizon  was  no  longer  Egypt  but  Assyria. 
The  only  possible  deduction  from  this  is  that  Deu- 
teronomy must  have  been  in  existence  at  least  long 
before  Hosea.  For,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  evidently 
Hosea  who  has  Deut.  xxviii.  68  in  his  mind,  and  not 
Wellhausen’s  supposed  compiler  of  Deuteronomy — 
writing  in  the  time  of  Josiah — who  is  thinking  of 
Hosea  viii.  13;  and  secondly,  we  note  that  the 
prophet,  writing  under  Tiglathpileser,  finds  the  quo- 
tation inadequate,  and  not  sufficiently  appropriate 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  time : he  therefore  sup- 
plements it  in  Hosea  ix.  3 (and,  indeed,  according  to 
the  LXX.,  in  Hosea  viii.  13  also)  by  a reference  to 
Assyria. 

Another  assertion  of  the  Wellhausen  school  which 
also  remains  to  be  proved,  is  the  statement  that, 
prior  to  the  conquest  of  the  territory  west  of  the 
Jordan,  the  Israelites  were  a semi-barbarous  nomadic 
race.  The  same  remark  applies  to  the  collateral 
hypothesis  that  the  Israelites  in  the  course  of  time 


12 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


derived  the  cult  of  the  patriarchs  and  the  heroic 
legends  connected  therewith  from  the  Canaanites. 
In  the  present  volume  I propose  to  show,  by  a care- 
ful examination  of  the  personal  names  which  occur 
in  the  inscriptions,  the  high  degree  of  development 
which  religious  ideas  had  attained  among  the  Arabs, 
Midianites,  Kenites,  and  kindred  peoples  by  the 
middle  of  the  second  millennium  before  Christ. 
Moreover,  as  will  be  demonstrated  later  on,  the  in- 
scriptions throw  a totally  new  light  on  the  relatively 
high  degree  of  civilization  possessed  by  these  “ no- 
madic ” Semitic  peoples. 

As  a general  rule,  the  “ sources”  mentioned  above 
can  be  readily  distinguished  one  from  another  by 
the  name  which  is  applied  in  each  to  the  Supreme 
Being,  and  by  their  style  and  language,  so  that  it 
is  often  possible  to  assign  with  certainty  a whole 
chapter,  or  at  any  rate  large  portions  of  a chapter, 
to  one  or  other  of  them.  Often,  however  (as,  for 
instance,  in  the  story  of  the  Flood),  the  task  of 
analysis  is  more  difficult,  owing  to  the  intimate 
fusion  which  has  taken  place.  In  many  cases, 
indeed,  it  is  a pure  fantasy  to  imagine  that  science 
possesses  any  solvent  capable  of  reducing  the  com- 
pound to  its  primary  elements.  We  too  readily 
lose  sight  of  the  fact,  sufficiently  proved  by  the 
evidence  of  the  early  translations,  that  even  after 
the  amalgamation  of  the  various  sources,  the  Old 
Testament  text  underwent  many  modifications  at 
the  hands  of  officiating  priests  and  copyists  before 
it  assumed  the  form  in  which  we  now  possess  it. 
The  oldest  known  MSS.  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  do 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 3 

not,  we  must  remember,  go  further  back  than  the 
eighth  century  A.D.1 

So  long  as  men  were  content  to  regard  these 
sources  as  nearly  contemporaneous  documents,  and 
— though  originating  from  different  quarters,  and  not 
having  perhaps  received  their  final  redaction  before 
the  time  of  the  Kings  — as  based  on  a trustworthy 
• Mosaic  tradition,  it  was  impossible  for  a theory  of 
the  events  of  Hebrew  history  and  of  the  evolution 
of  the  Hebrew  religion,  such  as  that  indicated  above 
in  the  passages  quoted  from  Cornill  and  Justi,  to 
gain  currency. 

Julius  Wellhausen,  following  in  the  steps  of  Reuss, 
Vatke,  and  Graf,  and  on  the  strength  of  ingenious 
but  misleading  arguments,  was  the  first  to  allot  the 
different  sources,  according  to  their  fancied  origin, 
to  various  dates,  far  apart  from  one  another,  and 
all  distant  from  the  time  of  Moses.  He  not  only 
assigned  Deuteronomy  to  the  time  of  Josiah  {vide 
supra),  but,  following  up  his  misleading  theory, 
placed  the  source  which  contains  the  greater  part 
of  the  Law  {i.e.  the  Priestly  Code)  last  of  all — in 
the  late  post-exilic  period.  It  is  only  since  Well- 
hausen that  a theory  in  regard  to  the  events  of  sa- 
cred history,  has  assumed  a shape  which  is  diamet- 
rically opposed  to  Biblical  tradition,  and  especially 
to  the  narrative  part  of  the  Priestly  Code. 

1 Great  credit  is  due  to  Aug.  Klostermann  for  drawing  special  attention 
to  this  weak  side  of  the  methods  employed  in  distinguishing  between 
the  various  sources,  as  he  has  done  in  his  book  Der  Pentateuch , Bei - 
trage  zu  seinem  Versidndniss  und  seiner  Entstehungsgeschichte.  Leip- 

zig»  1893- 


14 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


The  main  reasons  which  led  Wellhausen  and  his 
predecessors  to  refer  the  Books  of  Moses  to  such 
late  dates  are  to  be  found  in  certain  contradictions 
— the  existence  of  which  cannot  be  altogether  de- 
nied— between  the  demands  of  what  had  previously 
been  regarded  as  the  priestly  law  of  Moses,  and  the 
actual  conditions  of  life  in  the  time  of  the  Judges, 
Samuel,  and  the  Kings.  The  law  given  in  the 
desert,  with  its  one  central  Holy  of  Holies  in  the 
Tabernacle,  its  complicated  system  of  sacrificial 
rules  and  other  ceremonial  observances,  its  hosts  of 
religious  officials  (Priests  and  Levites),  seems  in 
after-times  to  have  remained,  in  many  respects,  little 
better  than  a dead  letter,  until,  about  one  hundred 
years  after  the  return  from  exile,  when  the  prophet 
Ezra,  who  was  born  and  had  grown  up  at  Babylon, 
insisted  on  its  proper  observance,  and  by  so  doing 
founded  the  Jewish  Church. 

If  we  add  to  this  that  in  760  B.c.  the  prophet 
Amos,  speaking  in  the  name  of  God,  asks  the  Israel- 
ites, “ Did  ye  bring  unto  Me  sacrifices  and  offerings 
in  the  wilderness  forty  years  ? ” (Amos  v.  25),  and 
that  Jeremiah  in  608  B.c.  (some  years  after  the  dis- 
covery of  Deuteronomy  in  621  B.C.),  in  speaking  of 
God,  declares  that  He  gave  the  Israelites,  when 
He  brought  them  out  of  Egypt,  no  commands  in 
regard  to  burnt -offerings  and  meat-offerings,  but 
only  enjoined  that  they  should  hearken  to  His 
commandments  and  walk  in  His  way ; then  in- 
deed it  would  almost  seem  as  though  the  latter 
prophet  either  did  not  know  of  the  Priestly  Code, 
or  at  any  rate  did  not  regard  the  numerous  sac- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1$ 

rificial  and  ritual  laws  inserted  in  it  as  emanating 
from  Moses. 

The  different  interpretations,  however,  which  have 
been  given  of  the  passage  just  quoted  (Amos  v.  : j 
et  seq.),  prove  that  it  is  not  safe  to  base  deductions 
on  sentences  thus  torn  from  their  context.  Kautzsch  1 
thus  translates  it : “ Did  ye  bring  unto  Me  for  forty 
years  in  the  desert  sacrifices  and  offerings,  O ye  Is- 
raelites? Therefore  shall  ye  now  take  [upon  your 
necks]  Sikkut  your  king,  and  the  star  your  god,  the 
Kevan,  your  images,  which  ye  have  made  for  your- 
selves, and  I will  lead  you  out  into  captivity  beyond 
Damascus,  saith  the  Lord.”  Dillmann,  on  the  other 
hand,2  renders  the  passage  more  freely,  and,  it  seems 
to  me,  far  more  correctly,  as  follows  : “ Have  ye  then 
offered  Me  sacrifice  for  forty  years,  and  at  the  same 
time  borne  your  star-gods  about  with  you  (both  of 
which  things  ye  now  do)  ? ” Finally,  the  Greek 
translation  (which  is  followed  by  S.  Stephen,  Acts 
vii.  42  et  seq.),  runs  thus  : Did  ye  offer  unto  Me  slain 
beasts  and  sacrifices  forty  years  in  the  wilderness, 
O house  of  Israel?  And  (=No,  but)  ye  took  up  the 
tabernacle  of  Moloch,  and  the  star  of  the  god  Rai- 
phan  (A.  V.  Remphan),  the  figures  which  ye  made, 
to  worship  them.  And  I (=  but  I)  will  carry  you 
away  beyond  Damascus  (A.  V.  Babylon).”  In  re- 
gard to  the  second  passage  (Jeremiah  vii.  22  et  seq.), 
Baxter3  has  recently  drawn  attention  to  its  analogy 

1 Or  rather  Hermann  Guthe,  who  is  responsible  for  the  translation  of 
Amos  in  Kautzsch’s  work  on  the  Bible. 

2 Handbuch  der  A It  test.  Theologie  (Leipzig,  1895),  p.  5^‘ 

9 Sanctuary  and  Sacrifice  (London,  1895),  p.  194. 


l6  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

with  the  declaration  of  the  Apostle  St.  Paul  in  i Cor. 
i.  17  : “ Christ  sent  me  not  to  baptize,  but  to  preach 
the  gospel”  ; just  as  the  words  of  the  Apostle  can- 
not be  taken  to  imply  that  he  was  ignorant  of  the 
institution  of  the  Christian  rite  of  Baptism,  so  the 
rhetorical  expression  employed  by  Jeremiah  ought 
not  to  be  construed  as  a denial  of  the  existence  of 
sacrificial  laws  in  the  time  of  Moses:  he  merely  in- 
tended to  show  that  they  are  of  secondary  conse- 
quence to  the  people  as  compared  with  the  far  more 
important  moral  laws. 

Moreover,  it  is  precisely  the  legal  portion  of  the 
Priestly  Code,  to  the  pre-prophetic  written  existence 
of  which  Hosea  (viii.  12  et  seq.)  refers  in  such  un- 
mistakable terms,1  which  gives  one,  in  places,  an 
impression  of  extreme  antiquity.  The  language  is 
excessively  formal  and  characteristic,  and  there  is 
absolutely  nothing  to  suggest  that  it  belongs  to  the 
exilic  or  post-exilic  period.  In  this  latter  event  we 
should  expect  it  to  contain  a large  number  of  Baby- 
lonian and  Aramaic  loan-words,  and  it  is,  in  fact, 
the  absence  of  these  which,  in  my  opinion,  consti- 
tutes the  chief  argument  in  favour  of  referring  the 
Priestly  Code  to  a far  earlier  date.  There  are,  it  is 
true,  a whole  host  of  words  in  the  ritual  language  of 
the  Old  Testament  which  can  be  satisfactorily  ex- 
plained only  by  a reference  to  Babylonian.  But 

1 “ Though  I write  for  him  my  law  in  ten  thousand  precepts  (i.e. 
countless  times  oftener  than  I have  already  done),  they  (these  myri- 
ads of  laws)  are  counted  as  a strange  thing.  As  for  the  sacrifices  of 
mine  offerings,  they  sacrifice  flesh  and  eat  it ; but  the  Lord  accepteth 
them  not ; now  will  He  remember  their  iniquity  and  visit  their  sins.” 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1/ 

these  terms 1 date  back  to  the  early  Babylonian 
period,  and  belong  therefore  to  a totally  different 
category  from  the  Neo-Babylonian  words  which 
occur  in  Ezekiel,  and  which  can  be  recognized  at  a 
glance  as  more  recent  appropriations.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  many  ritual  termini  technici  such  as 
tamid , “ perpetual  burnt-offering,”  or  rather  “ ever- 
lasting sacrifice,”  which  can  only  be  explained 
through  the  Arabic  (Arab,  tamid , “ fixed  appoint- 
ment,” amad , “ End,  Eternity  ”),  the  obvious  source 
of  them  being  traceable,  as  will  be  more  fully  ex- 
plained hereafter,  to  the  ancient  relations  between 
Israel  and  Midian  (Moses  and  Jethro). 

To  assume  that  the  inconsistencies— which  are 
often  enough  merely  superficial — between  the  Priest- 
ly Code  and  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  time  of  the 
Judges  afford  sufficient  reason  for  proclaiming  the 
whole  Priestly  Code  a post-exilic  fabrication,  and  as 
having  no  existence  in  the  time  of  the  Prophets,  and 
for  regarding  every  indication  to  the  contrary  as  due 
to  a recension  made  with  a special  purpose,  is  indeed 
a drastic  remedy.  True,  it  explains  everything,  but 
at  the  same  time  it  compels  us  to  assume,  in  defiance 
of  all  psychological  probability,  such  a monstrous 
falsification  of  tradition  during  the  relatively  short 
period  between  Ezekiel  (i.e.  the  commencement  of 
the  Captivity)  and  Ezra,  as  is  absolutely  incompati- 

1 There  are,  no  doubt,  a number  of  direct  loan-words  among  these, 
e.g.  Hebr.  kohen , “ Priest,”  Babyl.  mushkinu  (from  mushkahinu ), 

“ votive,”  “ offering  homage  to  the  Deity”;  or  tertimah,  “heave-offer- 
ing,” Babyl.  tartmtu , “offering-cup”;  or  Hebr.  tor  ah , “law,  command- 
ment,” Babyl.  urtu  and  tertu. 


1 8 THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

ble  with  everything  we  know  of  the  national  char- 
acter of  the  Israelites  from  their  previous  history. 
We  must  seek,  therefore,  for  other  solutions  of  the 
enigma  more  in  harmony  with  tradition. 

The  simplest  course  to  meet  the  difficulty  would, 
no  doubt,  be  to  endeavour  to  make  good  the  con- 
tentions of  the  learned  Professor  of  Old  Testament 
Literature  at  the  American  University  of  Princeton, 
W.  H.  Green,  who  has  recently  written  a compre- 
hensive volume,1  with  the  aim  of  entirely  disproving 
the  alleged  existence  of  different  sources  in  the  Pen- 
tateuch ; a course  which  is  in  some  measure  com- 
mended by  the  attitude  of  the  English  Assyriologist, 
A.  H.  Sayce,  who  not  long  ago  opened  a bold  and 
destructive  fire,  from  an  archaeological  standpoint, 
upon  the  whole  method  of  the  so-called  “ Higher 
Critics”  of  the  Bible.2  It  is  unquestionable  that 
the  higher  critics  have  gone  virtually  bankrupt 
in  their  attempt  to  unravel,  not  only  chapter  by 
chapter,  but  verse  by  verse,  and  clause  by  clause, 
the  web  in  which  the  different  sources  are  entan- 
gled, arguing  frequently  from  premises  which  are 
entirely  false. 

The  numerous  weak  points  to  which  Professor 
Green  calls  attention  with  pitiless  logic,  are  merely 
fresh  proof  of  what  Klostermann  has  described  by 
such  terms  as  “hair-splitting”  and  “atom-dividing” 
on  the  part  of  the  modern  critics  of  the  Pentateuch. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  denial  of  the  existence  of 

1 The  Unity  of  the  Book  of  Genesis , New  York,  1895. 

2 The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Verdict  of  the  Monuments , 5th  ed.: 
London,  1895  (1st  ed.,  1894). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 9 

different  sources  is  another  equally  drastic  remedy. 
It  would  give  us  back,  it  is  true,  the  Mosaic  writings 
of  former  times  in  their  indissoluble  unity — a pro- 
cedure, however,  which,  in  the  face  of  all  that  the 
study  of  the  Old  Testament  has  revealed  during  the 
last  hundred  years,  would  carry  us  distinctly  too 
far,  and  would  be  equivalent  to  cutting  the  Gordian 
knot  in  place  of  untying  it.  While  Klostermann  is 
not  disposed  to  dispute  the  existence  of  the  main 
sources  of  the  Pentateuch,  yet  he  protests  against 
the  narrative  portions  of  the  Priestly  Code  being 
regarded  as  a separate  source,  and  would  attribute 
them  rather  to  the  compiler  himself. 

That  several  sources  really  did  exist  is  shown  by 
the  mere  fact  of  the  double  narrative,  quite  apart 
from  the  various  forms  of  the  Divine  name  and 
certain  differences  in  style,  upon  which  it  is  hardly 
safe  to  put  very  much  dependence.  The  existence  of 
this  double  narrative  has  been  questioned,  it  is  true, 
by  many  learned  apologists,  Professor  Green  being 
among  the  number,  but  without  sufficient  reason. 
Such  an  attitude  was  due  to  a natural  reaction  from 
the  unfair  use  made  of  these  duplicated  passages  by 
modern  critics  of  the  Pentateuch,  in  their  efforts  to 
discredit  the  historical  credibility  of  the  whole. 
For  my  part,  I consider  that  we  have  a right  to  draw 
from  them  an  exactly  opposite  inference.  The  more 
numerous  the  discrepancies  in  unimportant  details 
between  two  independent  accounts  of  an  event,  so 
much  the  higher  is  the  probability  that  the  event 
itself  is  historically  true.  The  justice  of  this  conten- 
tion receives  daily  confirmation  from  the  chronicles 


20 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


of  events  in  our  newspapers,  and  we  need  not,  there- 
fore, because  of  a few  trifling  discrepancies,  dismiss 
the  narratives  in  question  as  mere  legends  with  only 
a certain  nucleus  of  historical  truth  at  their  base.  As 
a matter  of  fact,  the  theory  of  double  recensions  may 
be  easily  carried  too  far ; for  instance,  the  so-called 
“ Jehovistic  Decalogue”  in  Exodus  xxxiv.  is  a mere 
creation  of  the  modern  critic’s  imagination.  In 
reality  we  have  here  only  the  beginning  of  the 
Decalogue  (xxxiv.  14 — 17)  amplified  by  a duplicate 
passage  at  the  end  of  the  Book  of  the  Covenant 
(xxxiv.  18 — 26  = xxiii.  14 — 19). 

Unfortunately,  in  spite  of  the  amply  rewarded 
attempts  by  Klostermann  and  others  to  drive  the 
hair-splitting  philology  of  the  source-investigators 
to  a reductio  ad  absurdum,  many  people  still  accept 
the  conclusions  of  the  latter  as  gospel.  The  late 
August  Dillmann1  was  the  only  scholar  of  modern 
times  who  attacked  the  subject  from  the  actual 
position  of  these  critics,  and  yet  came  to  regard  the 
Priestly  Code  as  a pre-exilic  document.  Realizing 
that  God  had  revealed  Himself  even  in  the  days  of 
the  Patriarchs,  he  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  groundwork,  at  any  rate,  of  the  tradition  con- 
tained in  the  sources  of  the  Pentateuch  is  of  Mosaic 
origin. 

But  Dillmann  stands  almost  alone,  and,  in  spite  of 
our  high  appreciation  of  his  profound  learning  and 
carefully  discriminating  judgment,  it  has  come  to  be 

1 Cf.,  in  addition  to  his  Commentaries,  the  Handbuch  der  alttest. 
Tkeologie , Leipzig,  1895,  compiled  by  Kittel  from  his  literary  re- 
mains. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


21 


the  fashion  in  Germany  to  regard  his  protests  against 
the  hypothesis  of  Graf  and  Wellhausen  as  misdi- 
rected, or  at  any  rate  unconvincing.1 

Even  such  a moderate  and  earnest  theologian  as 
Professor  Kautzsch  of  Halle,  at  the  end  of  the  ap- 
pendices to  his  translation  of  the  Old  Testament, 
includes  Wellhausen’s  theory  among  the  “verdicts 
which  no  exegetical  skill  can  now  hope  to  reverse.” 
This  is  equivalent  to  an  open  confession,  that,  if  our 
study  of  the  Old  Testament  is  to  be  confined  to 
methods  of  purely  literary  criticism,  we  must  accept 
the  conclusions  of  modern  criticism  of  the  Penta- 
teuch as  decisive,  however  revolutionary  it  may  be 
in  its  character. 

The  question,  however,  arises,  whether  by  attack- 
ing the  matter  from  an  entirely  different  side,  and  with 
totally  new  weapons,  it  may  not  be  possible  to  discov- 
er some  proof  that  the  Hebrew  tradition,  especially 
that  part  of  it  which  deals  with  the  period  of  the 
Patriarchs  and  the  time  of  Moses,  is  not  so  untrust- 
worthy as  the  present  prevailing  theory  would  make 
it  out  to  be.  Tradition  associates  the  history  of 
Abraham  with  Babylonia , that  of  Jacob  and  Joseph 
with  Egypt , and  that  of  Moses  with  Egypt  and 
Arabia.  Now,  if  it  were  possible  to  adduce  evi- 
dence from  the  inscriptions  which  would  prove  even 
a part  of  the  Hebrew  tradition,  at  present  rejected 
as  spurious,  to  be  of  the  highest  antiquity  and  thus 
far  trustworthy,  the  ground  would  be  effectively  cut 

1 Cf.  the  section  in  H.  Holzinger’s  Einleitung  in  den  Hexateuch 
(Freiburg,  1893),  pp.  466-73,  on  “Dillmann’s  position  in  regard  to 
Graf’s  hypothesis.” 


22 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


away  from  beneath  the  feet  of  modern  critics  of  the 
Pentateuch. 

It  is  from  external  evidence,  therefore,  that  the 
final  decision  must  come. 


Before  I endeavour,  in  the  following  chapters,  to 
bring  forward  this  evidence  in  detail,  I should  like 
to  cite  some  pertinent  observations  on  the  subject 
of  critical  methods — to  which  I attach  all  the  more 
importance  because  they  have  been  formulated,  not 
by  myself,  but  by  Eduard  Meyer  of  Halle,  a historian 
who  is  well  known  to  be  one  of  the  most  radical  in- 
vestigators in  the  field  of  Old  Testament  criticism. 

His  History  of  Antiquity ,l  a work  distinguished 
by  its  breadth  of  view  as  well  as  by  its  execution, 
gained  him  on  the  one  hand  a high  reputation,  while 
on  the  other  it  brought  him  into  disrepute  because 
of  the  almost  fanatical  antipathy  he  displayed  against 
the  recognition  of  any  positive  religious  movements 
among  the  ancient  Semitic  races,  and  especially 
among  the  Israelites.2  Within  the  last  few  months 
he  published  a work  on  The  Origin  of  Judaism 

1 Vol.  i.,  Geschichte  des  Orients  bis  zur  Begr undung  des  Perserreiches 
(Stuttgart,  1884);  vol.  ii. , Geschichte  des  Abendlandes  bis  auf  die 
Perserkriege  (Stuttgart,  1893). 

2 On  pp.  262-4  °f  my  History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  I have  drawn 
attention  to  some  of  the  more  striking  instances  of  this  kind,  and 
have  quoted  them  at  length.  Compare  e.  g.  the  statement  of  Meyer’s 
book,  p.  208,  note  1,  “ The  same  remarkable  poverty  [of  religious  con- 
ceptions] which  pervades  the  Koran  lies  also  at  the  root  of  the  human 
sacrifices  of  the  Canaanites,  of  the  religious  phrases  of  the  Assyrians, 
and  of  the  worship  of  Jahveh  also:  the  Aryan  finds  it  intolerable  to 
give  them  even  a passing  attention.”  This  last  admission  is  especially 
significant. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


23 


(Halle,  1896,  issued  in  October,  1896),  in  which  he 
shows  that  the  various  letters  and  lists  which  occur 
in  the  Books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  {eg.  the  cor- 
respondence with  the  Persian  court  in  Ezra  iv. — vi., 
which  is  by  many  considered  to  be  spurious)  must 
be  regarded  as  absolutely  genuine  documents,  and 
supports  his  contention  mainly  by  external  evidence, 
adducing  for  his  purpose  other  genuine  documents 
of  the  time  of  the  Achasmenides. 

In  the  introduction  to  this  book  Meyer  refers  to 
the  furious  assault  made  some  years  ago  by  the 
Dutch  critic  Kosters  against  the  whole  Biblical 
tradition  of  the  time  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  These 
and  similar  researches  are  based  (I  purposely  quote 
Meyer  word  for  word)  “ on  the  extraneous  informa- 
tion which  we  possess  regarding  Jewish  history: 
from  this  they  endeavour  to  formulate  a theory  of 
what  actually  took  place : if  the  documents  fail  to 
support  this  theory,  the  documents  must  be  spuri- 
ous.” This  Meyer  rightly  characterizes  as  “ a very 
hazardous  proceeding  on  the  part  of  an  historian.” 
“ For  a document,”  he  goes  on  to  say,  “ is,  if  genuine, 
a witness  which  defies  contradiction  ; should  there  arise 
within  the  field  covered  by  a document  a contradic- 
tion between  the  document  itself  and  other  historical 
narrative,  the  latter  must  give  way  ” {op.  cit.  p.  3). 
And  on  p.  4 he  writes : “ It  matters  not  how  inge- 

nious an  historical  theory  may  be,  it  must  collapse  irre- 
trievably if  it  ■ is  found  to  be  in  contradiction  with  a 
genuine  document } A document  can  only  be  rejected 

1 The  italics  are  mine  ; in  Meyer’s  book  the  words  are  printed  in  ordi- 
nary type. 


24 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


as  spurious  after  a most  searching  and  unbiassed  ex- 
amination, and  this  is  just  what  the  documents  in 
Ezra  iv. — vii.  have,  so  far,  failed  to  obtain.  The 
authenticity  of  a document  once  proved,  the  ground 
would  be  cleared  for  fresh  structures  for  which  there 
would  be  otherwise  no  foundation.  For  the  historian 
must  not  attempt  to  dominate  facts  by  hypotheses 
and  theories,  but,  on  the  contrary,  seek  first  of  all 
for  trustworthy  facts,  entirely  uninfluenced  by  any 
theory  ivhich  he  may  in  any  way  have  deduced  from 
events}  It  is  only  after  he  has  obtained  his  facts 
that  he  is  able  to  clear  up  uncertainties,  to  fill  up 
the  gaps  in  tradition,  and  to  arrive  at  a consistent 
theory  of  development.”  I trust  I may  be  par- 
doned if  I make  one  more  quotation  from  the  close 
of  the  Introduction  (pp.  6 et  seqi):  “If  we  succeed 
. . . in  showing  that  a document  ...  is  perfectly 
intelligible  in  relation  to  the  circumstances  of  its 
time ; if  it  be  possible,  by  a careful  analysis,  to  pen- 
etrate more  deeply  into  its  meaning,  . . . and  to 
demonstrate  that  it  cannot  have  been  tampered  with 
by  the  compiler  of  the  chronicle  ; . . . and  further , 
if  it  be  possible  to  adduce  in  evidence  documents  of  un- 
doubted authenticity  obtained  perhaps  from  distant 
countries  with  which  the  author  of  the  tradition  ivas 
unacquainted 1 (such,  for  instance,  as  the  Gadatas  In- 
scription, an  edict  of  the  Persian  monarch  Darius  I. 
to  his  satrap  Gadatas,  which  is  the  instance  that 
Meyer  has  here  in  view),  then  the  defence  is  as 
complete  as  it  can  well  be  made.” 

In  immediate  connection  with  this,  Meyer  contrasts 


1 The  italics  are  mine. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  25 

the  traditions  of  Jewish  history  in  the  Persian  epoch 
with  those  of  the  earlier  history  of  the  Israelites. 
With  regard  to  the  tradition  of  post-exilic  history, 
while  maintaining  that  there  is  “ firm  historical 
ground  ” to  go  upon,  and  that  the  historical  inaccu- 
racy of  many  portions  of  this  tradition  (not,  be  it 
remarked,  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  remainder) 
still  remains  to  be  proved,  yet  when  we  come  to  a 
period,  he  says,  “ for  which  no  authentic  historical 
tradition  exists,  and  have  to  deal  with  oral  tradition 
which  has  been  worked  up  into  a coherent  narrative 
by  a number  of  later  writers  acting  in  combination 
with  one  another,1  . . . then,  we  must  first  prove  that 
the  narrative  is  historically  true,  or  at  any  rate  con- 
tains a modicum  of  historical  truth ; ” until  such  proof 
be  forthcoming  the  tradition  must  be  taken  for  what 
it  is,  that  is  to  say,  as  legend  and  not  history. 

In  the  following  chapters  it  will  be  shown  that 
those  very  traditions  concerning  the  early  history  of 
Israel,  especially  those  preserved  in  the  so-called 
Priestly  Code  (which  is  notoriously  regarded  by  the 
Wellhausen  school  as  a post-exilic  forgery),  contain 
a whole  host  of  records , the  antiquity  and  genuine- 
ness of  which  are  vouched  for  by  external  evidence. 
These  include,  in  the  first  place,  the  lists  of  names  in 
the  Book  of  Numbers,  and  personal  names  generally 
from  the  time  of  Moses  down  to  Solomon.  They 
also  include  the  Song  of  Deborah  (which  even  mod- 
ern critics  of  the  Pentateuch  admit  to  be  a fairly  un- 

; It  is  evident  from  the  antithesis,  that  Meyer  here  refers  to  the  early 
history  of  Israel,  and  probably  to  a large  part  of  the  monarchical  period, 
though  he  does  not  say  so  in  so  many  words. 


26 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


modified  document  of  the  time  of  the  Judges),  as  well 
as  various  lyrical  passages,  such  as  the  prophesyings 
of  Balaam,1  the  blessings  pronounced  by  Jacob,  etc. 
Then  we  have  the  mention  of  various  nations  (includ- 
ing for  example,  those  very  portions  of  the  ethno- 
logical table  which  Wellhausen  attributes  to  the 
Priestly  Code),  and  legal  enactments,  the  various 
versions  of  which  only  differ  from  one  another  in 
minor  details  (e.g.  the  decalogue),  or  which  contain 
historical  allusions  applicable  only  to  a definite  pe- 
riod. And  lastly,  there  are  all  those  passages  which 
afford  internal  evidence  of  antiquity,  from  the  occur- 
rence of  expressions  which  in  later  times  had  become 
either  unintelligible  or  obsolete. 

Now  everything  that  Meyer  has  so  emphatically 
affirmed  in  the  passages  quoted  above,  with  regard 
to  the  documents  and  lists  of  names  in  the  Books  of 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  applies  with  immediate  and 
startling  force  to  a great  many  of  the  most  important 
and  characteristic  sections  of  the  Priestly  Code. 
According  to  the  principles  put  forward  by  Meyer 
in  his  historical  capacity,  the  theory  of  the  history  of 
Israel  which  Reuss,  Graf,  and  Wellhausen  have  built 
up  with  such  wonderful  ingenuity  “ must  collapse  ” 
inevitably  and  “ irretrievably  ” : a deduction  which, 
though  altogether  contrary  to  Meyer’s  intention,  is 
none  the  less  amply  warranted  if  we  apply  the  his- 
torical methods  which  he  advocates.  For  the  Graf- 

1 Later  on  I hope  to  prove,  from  the  political  setting  in  which  it  occurs, 
that  one  of  these  could  only  have  originated  shortly  before  the  conquest 
of  the  Holy  Land.  The  same  remark  applies  to  a part  of  Jacob’s  bless- 
ing, as  will  also  be  shown  later  on. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  27 

Wellhausen  theory  is  contradicted  in  various  partic- 
ulars by  evidence  of  the  most  direct  kind,  which,  to 
use  Meyer’s  own  expression,  “ defies  contradiction.” 
This  evidence  does  not  rest  on  any  later  forgery,  but 
on  documents  whose  authenticity  is  confirmed  by 
contemporary  inscriptions  which  are  found  in  distant 
regions. 

The  higher  critics,  therefore,  here  play  the  part  of 
Balaam,  however  little  they  may  have  foreseen  or 
desired  the  issue.  Called  in  to  curse,  they  have  been 
constrained  to  bless  the  Israelites. 


28 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  PALESTINE 

It  is  a cardinal  article  of  belief  among  modern 
critics  of  the  Pentateuch,  that  the  Hebrews  of  pre- 
Mosaic  times  were  uncivilized  nomads,  whose  re- 
ligion consisted  in  the  worship  of  ancestral  heroes 
and  the  adoration  of  stones,  trees,  springs  and  ani- 
mals, in  other  words,  of  a mixture  of  Fetishism  and 
Totemism.  This  view  of  the  early  beginnings  of 
the  Hebrew  faith  is  one  of  the  most  vital  factors  in 
Wellhausen’s  system;  it  is  at  once  the  necessary 
conclusion  to  which  his  theories  lead,  and  the  actual 
basis  and  assumption  on  which  they  rest.  Viewed, 
however,  from  the  stand-point  of  profane  history 
alone,  its  extreme  improbability  is  sufficiently  proved 
by  a single  glance  at  the  nations  who  lived  in  and 
around  Palestine  during  the  earliest  ages,  and  at  the 
facts  recorded  concerning  them. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  traces  of  such  ancestor- 
worship  and  fetishism  have  in  all  ages  been  found 
among  the  Israelites,  especially  among  those  of  the 
northern  kingdom  ; this  is  abundantly  proved  by 
various  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  literature, 
but  it  is  no  more  an  argument  against  the  concur- 
rent existence  of  a higher  conception  of  the  Deity, 
than  the  numerous  superstitious  customs  and  ideas 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  29 

still  prevalent  among  the  lower  orders  of  almost 
every  civilized  country  of  the  present  day  are  argu- 
ments against  the  existence  and  practical  results  of 
Christianity.  The  Semites,  partly  settled,  partly 
nomadic,  who  inhabited  the  vast  territory  lying  be- 
tween the  two  great  centres  of  primitive  civilization, 
Egypt  and  Babylonia,  were  exposed  from  at  least 
about  3000  B.C.,  as  the  evidence  of  the  inscriptions 
proves  more  and  more  clearly  every  day,  to  influ- 
ences of  the  most  varied  kind  both  from  the  Nile  and 
the  Euphrates.  Even  the  nomads  among  them  had 
by  that  time  emerged  from  that  state  of  uncivilized 
barbarism,  which  modern  critics  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment would  have  us  believe  to  have  been  the  con- 
dition of  the  Hebrews  shortly  before  the  time  of 
David. 

It  has  been  the  ill  fortune  of  the  higher  critics  to 
elaborate  and  perfect  their  historical  theories  with- 
out paying  any  serious  attention  to  the  results 
brought  to  light  by  Assyriologists  and  Egyptolo- 
gists. Let  us  in  the  first  place  review  for  a moment 
the  discoveries  made  by  Assyriologists  in  the  highly 
interesting  branches  of  historical  and  philological 
research,  with  a special  eye  to  the  information  that 
can  be  gleaned  from  them  in  regard  to  Palestine  and 
the  other  surrounding  countries  prior  to  the  time  of 
Abraham.  It  is  necessary  here  to  remark,  that  the 
application  of  the  term  “ Assyriology,”  as  it  is  now 
generally  used,  to  the  study  of  the  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions, is  not  quite  correct ; indeed  it  is  actually  mis- 
leading. It  is  true  that  the  study  of  these  inscrip- 
tions first  began  in  connection  with  the  Assyrian 


30 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


royal  inscriptions,  which  for  some  ten  years  monop- 
olized the  public  interest,  and  proper  names,  most 
of  which  were  already  familiar  to  readers  of  the 
Bible,  such  as  Tiglathpileser,  Shalmaneser,  Sargon, 
Sennacherib,  Esarhaddon,  and  Sardanapalus,  be- 
came, thanks  to  the  decipherment  of  the  cuneiform 
inscriptions,  as  much  household  words  as  those  of 
Alexander  or  Caesar.  But  when  the  celebrated  Clay 
Tablets  of  Assurbanipal’s  (or  Sardanapalus’)  library 
were  discovered  and  closely  examined,  it  became 
more  and  more  clear  that  the  literary  treasures  it 
contained  belonged  to  an  epoch  far  earlier  than  that 
of  the  Assyrian  monarchy,  namely,  to  that  which  is 
now  known  as  the  early  Babylonian  period.  Original 
monuments  of  that  remote  era  having  been  discov- 
ered in  increasing  numbers,  it  now  grows  daily^  more 
apparent  that  in  it  are  to  be  found  the  sources,  not 
only  of  early  Asiatic  civilization  (including  that  of 
primitive  Egypt),  but  also  of  western  culture,  i.e.  of 
classical  antiquity,  with  which  our  own  is  bound  up. 

While  to  the  lay  mind  Babylonia  and  Assyria  are 
nearly  synonymous  terms,  they  are,  in  fact,  quite 
distinct  geographically.  Babylonia  is  the  shallow 
depression  between  the  lower  reaches  of  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates,  and  owes  its  distinctive  features  and 
characteristics  to  the  latter  river.  Assyria,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  region  to  the  east  of  the  middle 
Tigris,  quite  one-half  its  area  being  mountainous. 
There  is,  furthermore,  an  even  greater  difference 
between  them  from  an  historical  point  of  view, 
especially  in  so  far  as  the  evolution  of  their  civiliza- 
tion is  concerned.  Babylonia  is  the  cradle  of  the 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


31 


earliest  civilization,  and  could  look  back  to  a history 
covering  several  thousands  of  years  at  a time  (about 
1900  B.c.)  when  the  history  of  Assyria  was  in  its  in- 
fancy ; it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  Assyrian  civiliza- 
tion (its  language,  script,  and  religion)  is,  in  the  main, 
merely  an  offshoot  of  the  Babylonian.  It  is  absurd, 
therefore,  to  speak  of  an  independent  Assyrian  liter- 
ature ; unless,  of  course,  we  are  prepared  to  regard 
the  inscriptions  of  the  Assyrian  kings  as  a separate 
school  of  literature  by  itself.  The  material  which 
Sardanapalus  placed  in  his  library  consisted,  how- 
ever, with  unimportant  exceptions,  of  mere  copies 
of  earlier  Babylonian  texts. 

As  I have  already  pointed  out,  the  study  of  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  first  began  with  the  investi- 
gation of  Assyrian  monuments,  and  for  this  reason 
received  the  not  altogether  appropriate  name  of 
Assyriology.  If,  however,  we  go  back  to  the  first, 
beginnings  of  the  deciphering,  we  find  ourselves 
again  face  to  face  with  Babylonia,  though,  it  is  true, 
at  a very  late  stage  of  its  development ; for  it  was 
a Babylonian  translation  of  the  early  Persian  Achse- 
menid  texts—the  inscriptions  of  Cyrus,  Darius,  and 
Xerxes — which  first  led  to  the  unravelling  of  the 
tangled  web  of  Semitic  cuneiform  writing. 

I mention  this  merely  to  clear  away  any  misap- 
prehension which  may  exist  in  regard  to  the  name 
of  a science  which  is  of  such  supreme  importance  to 
biblical  students. 

As  a rule,  the  early  history  of  a state  moves  within 
narrow  limits ; the  more  important  political  com- 
plications do  not  arise  till  much  later.  The  great 


32 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


victories  of  the  Egyptian  Pharaohs  did  not  occur 
until  the  time  of  the  so-called  Later  Empire;  the 
preceding  epoch  was,  by  comparison,  peaceful  and 
patriarchal,  yet  even  then  (in  the  time  of  the  Later 
Empire,  about  1500  B.c.)  the  might  of  Egyptian 
arms  did  not  extend  beyond  Syria  and  Mesopo- 
tamia, for  Babylon  and  the  growing  power  of 
Assyria  were  conciliated  by  gifts.  We  find  a pre- 
cisely similar  state  of  things  in  Assyria ; for  nearly 
a thousand  years  the  Assyrian  kings  thought  them- 
selves lucky  if  they  were  able  to  secure  and  retain 
a firm  foothold  even  in  Mesopotamia,  and  steal  a 
march  now  and  then  on  the  Babylonians  ; and  it 
was  only  gradually  that  they  were  fired  with  the 
ambition  to  found  a universal  Empire.  In  this  they 
succeeded  to  some  extent;  but  their  successors,  the 
late  Babylonian  kings  and  the  Persians,  came  still 
nearer  to  the  goal,  which  was  only  eventually  attained 
by  Alexander  the  Great  and  the  Romans. 

It  would  be  a mistake,  however,  to  argue  from 
these  analogies  that  the  early  history  of  Babylonia 
was  a period  of  tranquil  and  peaceful  development, 
disturbed  only  now  and  then  by  little  differences 
with  their  next-door  neighbours  (especially  with  the 
Elamites,  and  later  on  also  with  the  Assyrians  and 
others). 

The  remarkable  discovery  made  a few  years  ago 
at  Tel-el-Amarna,  which  has  given  us  on  cuneiform 
tablets  the  correspondence  between  the  kings  and 
princes  of  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Mesopotamia,  and 
Palestine  with  the  Pharaohs,  Amenothes  III.  and  IV. 
(about  1400  B.c),  has  led  to  a considerable  modifica- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  33 

tion  of  our  former  views  on  this  point.  The  fact  that 
Babylonian,  and  not  Assyrian,  was  the  official  lan- 
guage of  diplomatic  intercourse  throughout  the 
whole  of  Western  Asia  towards  the  end  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  B.C.,  can  only  be  explained  or  made 
intelligible  by  assuming  that  for  a prolonged  period — 
of  several  centuries  at  least — Babylon  must  have  exer- 
cised a civilizing  influence  of  the  most  marked  descrip- 
tion on  Syria  and  Palestine , an  influence  which  can 
only  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  “ countries  of  the  West”  were  at  one 
time  politically  dependent  on  Babylon,  and  that 
consequently  there  had  been  a previous  Babylonian 
invasion. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  examine  the  early  Babylo- 
nian cuneiform  monuments  somewhat  more  closely 
for  evidence  on  this  point,  and,  to  carry  our  investi- 
gations back  to  a very  early  (perhaps  even  to  the 
very  earliest)  period  of  Babylonian  history — to  a time 
when  the  metropolitan  kingdom  of  Babylon  was  not 
yet  in  existence,  and  when  there  were  still  independ- 
ent Sumerian  (non-Semitic)  as  well  as  Semitic  kings 
in  Southern  Babylonia,  who  had  their  successive 
seats  of  government  at  Sirgulla,  Ur,  and  Nisin,  then 
again  at  Ur  and  at  Larsa — in  round  numbers,  to  a 
period  between  3000  and  2000  B.c.  There  were  in 
the  north,  at  the  same  period,  kings  of  Akkad 
(Agade)  and  of  Kish  or  Kishar  who  were  more  or 
less  dependent  on  the  South. 

We  come  in  the  beginning  of  our  investigation 
upon  the  mighty  “ Priest-king  ” Gudea  of  Sirgulla, 
who  reigned  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  millennium 


34 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


before  Christ.  We  learn  from  certain  inscriptions  of 
his,  written  in  pure  Sumerian,  and  discovered  by  the 
French  Consul,  M.  de  Sarzec,  that  he  had  procured 
for  his  building  operations  cedar  and  boxwood  from 
the  forests  of  Mount  Amanus,  building  stone  from 
Subsalla,  a mountain  in  the  “ countries  of  the  W est  ” ; 1 
alabaster  from  Tidanum  (Dedan),  another  mountain 
in  the  “countries  of  the  West”  close  to  Moab ; and 
cedars,  plane-trees,  and  other  precious  woods  from 
Ursu,  a mountain  of  Ibla  (Lebanon  ?).  In  addition  to 
the  West  there  was  another  region  which  owned  the 
sway  of  Gudea,  or  at  any  rate  belonged  to  the  con- 
federacy of  which  he  was  the  head  ; this  was  the 
great  Arabian  peninsula  which  served  as  a buffer 
between  Babylonia  and  Africa.  From  this  land  also 
he  levied  materials  for  his  undertakings.  From  the 
“ Gate  of  Ancestors,”  a mountain  of  Ki-Mashu  (after- 
wards abbreviated  to  Mashu),  he  obtained  copper ; 
from  Melukhkha,  or  North-western  Arabia,  “ ushu  ” 
wood  and  iron ; from  Khakhum,  a mountainous 
district  near  Medina,  and  from  the  same  Melukhkha, 
gold-dust ; and  from  Magan  (in  Eastern  Arabia) 
diorite.  Apparently  the  date  palm  was  imported 
into  Babylonia  from  this  latter  region  long  before  the 
time  of  Gudea. 

A reference  to  the  map  will  show  us  the  wide 
extent  of  country  which  was  either  subject  to  Gudea, 
or  made  accessible,  by  his  alliances,  to  his  ships  and 
caravans.  It  reached  northwards  as  far  as  the 
boundaries  of  Armenia  and  Cilicia ; on  the  west  it 

1 I.e.  Martu,  properly,  the  country  of  the  Amorites,  whence  we  get 
Amurri  =;  “Amorites”  and  “western.” 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


35 


included  the  whole  of  Mesopotamia  (Borsippa  near 
Carchemish  being  mentioned  as  one  of  his  ports  of 
call)  as  far  as  Lebanon  and  the  Dead  Sea  ; and  lastly 
Arabia,  at  any  rate  as  far  as  the  two  mountains 
Aga  and  Salma  (the  “ Gate  of  his  Ancestor  ” Nimrod), 
and  Medina.  Indeed,  if  Amiaud,  the  French  Assyri- 
ologist,  be  right  in  his  conjecture  with  regard  to 
Gubin,  the  place  from  which  Gudea  obtained  the 
timber  (chalup-wood)  for  his  ships,  his  sphere  of  in- 
fluence must  have  extended  as  far  as  Koptos,  near 
Thebes,  in  Upper  Egypt,  in  which  case  we  may  be 
right  in  identifying  the  chalup-tree  with  the  Persea 
or  Lebbakh,  which  is  found  growing  in  Egypt,  and 
is  now  called  by  the  Syrians  “ khalupa.” 

From  what  has  been  said,  we  can  now  understand 
the  part  played  by  Arabia  in  the  ancient  Babylo- 
nian epic  of  Nimrod  or  Gisdubar,  which  we  possess 
in  a form  dating  from  about  2000  B.C.  In  the  ninth 
canto  we  are  told  how  Gisdubar  set  out  for  the  land 
of  Mashu  {i.e.  Central  Arabia),  the  gate  of  which  {i.e. 
the  rocky  pass  formed  by  the  cliffs  of  Aga  and  Sal- 
ma) was  guarded  by  legendary  scorpion-men.  For 
twelve  miles  the  hero  had  to  make  his  way  through 
dense  darkness;1  at  length  he  came  to  an  enclosed 
space  by  the  sea-shore  where  dwelt  the  virgin  god- 
dess Sabitu 2 ; from  thence  he  had  to  travel  by  sea  for 
forty-five  days — though  the  return  voyage  only  oc- 


1 Hence  we  may  probably  see  why  Arabia  was  called  “ the  land  of 
darkness  ” (an  expression  found  as  early  as  the  time  of  Abraham,  in  the 
signature  of  a deed  of  sale). 

2 I.e.  “she  of  Mount  Sabu,”  a mountain  evidently  situated  some- 
where in  Arabia. 


36 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


cupied  three  days — till  he  arrived  at  the  Waters  of 
Death  (Bab-el-Mandeb  ?)  and  at  the  Isle  of  the  Blest 
(Sokotra?),  where  his  great-grandfather  Shamash- 
Napishtim  dwelt. 

The  “ Priest-kings  ” of  Sirgulla  were  succeeded  in 
the  hegemony  over  Babylonia  by  the  “ kings  of  Ur,” 
who  styled  themselves  by  the  supplementary  title  of 
“kings  of  Ingi  and  of  Akkad.”  Ingi  (otherwise 
Imgi,  originally  Imi-gur),  or  Sumer,  was  the  name  of 
the  southernmost  portion  of  Babylonia,  afterwards 
more  distinctively  known  as  Chaldaea.  It  included 
Ur  and  the  strip  of  Babylonia  bordering  on  Arabia, 
while  Akkad,  on  the  other  hand,  comprised  North- 
ern Babylonia.  After  these  came,  somewhere  about 
2500  B.C.,  the  Semitic  kings  of  Nisin,  a town  of  Cen- 
tral Babylonia,  who  appear  to  have  ruled  for  several 
centuries,  and  to  have  also  styled  themselves  kings 
of  Ingi  and  Akkad.  They  were  succeeded  by  an- 
other Semitic  dynasty,  the  “kings  of  Ur,”  so  called 
from  the  fact  that  Ur  was  their  capital,  but  it  is  evi- 
dent that  they  only  held  sway  over  a smaller  part  of 
Babylonia  ; they  no  longer  possessed  Ingi,  and  had 
lost  Akkad  as  well,  another  dynasty  having  mean- 
while established  itself  there.  They  made  up  for 
this  loss,  however,  by  extending  their  rule  over 
Elam,  Arabia,  and  the  countries  of  the  West,  and  for 
•this  reason  described  themselves  by  the  proud  title 
of  “kings  of  the  four  cardinal  points.”  This  exten- 
sion of  empire  took  place  somewhere  about  the 
middle  of  the  twenty-third  century  B.C.,  or  at  any 
rate  not  later  than  the  year  2000  B.c.  We  possess 
an  extremely  interesting  historical  document  dealing 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


37 


with  this  period,  in  the  shape  of  an  astrological 
work,  of  which  extracts  and  important  fragments 
were  preserved  to  us  in  the  library  of  Sardanapalus. 
It  is  called  the  Niir  Bel  (or  “ Light  of  the  god  Bel  ”). 
According  to  this  work,  the  historical  importance 
of  which  I was  one  of  the  first  to  recognize,  the  list 
of  constellations  appearing  on  the  political  horizon 
at  that  time  embraced  the  following.  In  Northern 
Babylonia  there  were  the  kings  of  Akkad  or  (as  they 
also  styled  themselves)  of  Kishar;  in  Ur,  the  kings 
already  mentioned  (Ini-Sin,  Bur-Sin,  Gimil-Sin,  and 
probably  a number  of  others  as  well),  who  exercised 
an  intermittent  rule  over  part  of  Elam  in  addition  to 
all  the  “countries  of  the  West”;  then  there  were 
their  neighbours  the  still  independent  kings  of  Ingi 
(the  so-called  “country  of  the  Sea”  on  the  Persian 
Gulf  and  confines  of  Arabia),  those  of  Anshan  (in 
Elam),  the  rulers  of  Khatu  (part  of  the  Hittite  coun- 
try in  Northern  Syria),  and  many  others.  Moreover, 
a large  number  of  Babylonian  Sacrifice-lists  recently 
discovered  are  dated  from  events  which  had  taken 
place  under  the  rule  of  these  kings  of  Ur.  They 
supplement  in  a most  remarkable  manner  the  data 
obtained  from  the  astrological  work  referred  to 
above.  Thus,  we  learn  from  them  that  daughters 
of  king  Ini-Sin  were  given  in  marriage  to  the 
Priest-kings  (patesi)  of  Anshan  (in  Elam),  of  Zapshali 
(=  Zapsha  of  the  Van  inscriptions,  and  therefore 
probably  situated  in  Cilicia  or  Armenia),  and  of  Mark- 
hashi  (Mar’ash  in  Northern  Syria).  We  are  further 
informed  that  this  same  king  Ini-Sin  (who,  by  the 
way,  is  also  mentioned  by  name  in  the  NUr  Bel  pre- 


38  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

viously  referred  to)  subdued  Kimash  (in  Central 
Arabia)  and  Simurru  (Simyra  in  Phoenicia,  between 
Arvad  and  Tripoli?);  Sabu  (in  Central  Arabia)  is 
also  mentioned  as  a place  which  paid  tribute  to  him.1 
If  we  could  only  obtain  more  precise  information  in 
regard  to  this  remote  period,  it  would  undoubtedly , 
prove  to  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  epochs  of 1 
Babylonian  history.  We  have  good  reason  to  be 
grateful,  however,  even  for  the  meagre  data  supplied 
by  the  Ndr  Bel  and  the  Sacrifice-lists,  since  they  en- 
able us  to  establish  the  one  important  fact,  that  even 
then — i.  e.  before  the  time  of  Abraham — the  whole 
of  Syria,  Phoenicia,  and  a great  part  of  Arabia  were 
under  the  direct  influence  of  Babylonian  civilization, 
an  influence  the  permanent  effect  of  which  can 
hardly  be  over-estimated,  and  from  which  the  no- 
madic and  semi-nomadic  elements  therein  were  cer- 
tainly not  exempt. 

There  is  no  mention  made  of  Egypt  in  the  docu- 
ments referred  to  above.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Egyptian  records  furnish  us  with  an  important  piece 
of  ethnological  evidence  which  has  a direct  bearing 
on  the  question  before  us.  From  the  time  of  the 
twelfth  dynasty  {circa  2200  B.c.  ?)  onwards  a new  race 
makes  its  appearance  on  the  Egyptian  horizon,  viz. 
the  Kashi  in  Nubia.  Dr.  E.  Glaser,  the  Arabian 
explorer,  in  his  learned  and  epoch-making  work,  A 
Sketch  of  the  History  and  Geography  of  Arabia*  (vol., 
ii.),  draws  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  name  was 

1 For  the  publication  of  these  most  interesting  texts  we  are  indebted 
to  P£re  Scheil  ( Recueil , vol.  xvii.)  and  Professor  Hilprecht. 

2 Skizze  der  Geschichte  und  Geographic  A rabiens : 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


39 


originally  applied  to  Elam  (Babyl.  “ Kashu”;  cf.  the 
Kicraioi  of  Herodotus),  and,  according  to  the  He- 
brew tradition,  was  afterwards  given  to  various 
parts  of  Central  and  Southern  Arabia : from  this  he 
argues  that  in  very  early  times— -prior  to  the  second 
millennium  before  Christ — North-East  Africa  must 
have  been  colonized  by  the  Elamites,  who  had,  nat- 
urally, to  pass  across  Arabia  on  their  way  thither. 
This  theory  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  in  the  so- 
called  Kushite  languages  of  North-East  Africa,  such 
as  the  Gaila,  Somali,  Bedsha,  and  other  allied  dia- 
lects, we  find  grammatical  principles  analogous  to 
those  of  the  Early  Egyptian  and  Semitic  tongues 
combined  with  a totally  dissimilar  syntax  present- 
ing no  analogy  with  that  of  the  Semites  or  with  any 
Negro  tongue  in  Africa,  but  resembling  closely  the 
syntax  of  the  Ural-altaic  languages  of  Asia,  to  which, 
at  any  rate  in  so  far  as  syntax  is  concerned,  the  Elam- 
ite language  belongs.  According  to  this  view,  the 
much-discussed  Kushites  (the  ^Ethiopians  of  Homer 
and  Herodotus)  must  originally  have  been  Elamitic 
Kassites,  who  were  scattered  over  Arabia,  and  found 
their  way  to  Africa.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
the  Bible  calls  Nimrod  a son  of  Kush,  and  that  the 
cuneiform  alternative. for  Nimrod  [Gisdubar],  viz. 
Gibilgamis  (originally  Gibil-gab),  shows  an  Elam- 
itic termination.  What  the  Nimrod  epic  tells  us 
of  Nimrod’s  wanderings  across  Arabia  must  there- 
fore be  regarded  as  a legendary  version  of  the  | 
historical  migration  of  the  Kassites  from  Elam  into  ; 
East  Africa  : Nimrod  is  merely  a personification  of 
that  Elamitic  race-element  of  which  traces  are  still 


40  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

to  be  found  both  in  Arabia  and  in  Nubia.  The  fact 
that  the  poet  claims  Gisdubar  as  a national  hero  of 
Babylonia,  and  as  conqueror  of  the  Elamite  king 
Khumbaba,  is  in  no  way  opposed  to  this  view ; 
the  Elamitic  origin  of  Gisdubar  came  in  course  of 
time  to  be  forgotten  even  in  Babylon  itself ; more- 
over, the  Gisdubar-Nimrod  of  the  epic  possessed 
originally  an  affinity  with  Nabu-Nusku,  the  fire- 
demon  and  planet-god,  into  which  it  is  outside  our 
present  purpose  to  enter. 

After  this  digression  we  may  now  continue  to 
trace  the  course  of  early  Babylonian  history  in  so 
far  as  Arabia  and  the  “countries  of  the  West”  are 
concerned.  The  Semitic  kings  of  Ur  were  followed 
by  those  of  Larsa  (Nur-Ramman,  Sin-idinna,  etc.). 
While  Nur-Ramman,  the  former  of  these,  merely 
describes  himself  as  “ Shepherd  of  Ur,  king  of 
Larsa,”  his  son  Sin-idinnam  having  succeeded  in 
winning  back  the  supremacy  over  Ingi  (Sumer)  and 
over  Akkad,  made  himself  thus  master  of  the  greater 
part  of  Babylonia.  After  an  interval  of  somewhat 
doubtful  duration,  an  Elamite  named  Eri-Aku  [Ari- 
och]  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Larsa,  Sumer,  and 
Akkad  about  1900  B.c. ; he  is  also  mentioned  by  the 
Semitic  name  Arad-Sin,  and  by  the  half-Semitic, 
half-Sumerian  name  of  Rim-Sin.  We  shall  hear 
more  fully  about  him  later  on.  His  father  bore  the 
purely  Elamite  name  of  Kudur-Mabug,  and  is  de- 
scribed, in  one  place,  as  king  of  Martu  ( i.e . of  the 
countries  of  the  West),  in  another  as  prince  of  Ya- 
mutbal ; Elam  itself  was  ruled  by  king  Kudur-Laga- 
mar  (Chedor-Laomer),  whose  vassal  Eri-Aku  was. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


41 


Meanwhile,  however,  an  Arabian  dynasty1  had  man- 
aged to  establish  itself  in  Northern  Babylonia,  fully 
one  hundred  years  before  the  reign  of  Eri-Aku ; 
these  aliens  soon  learnt  to  assimilate  themselves 
completely  with  the  Babylonians,  and  from  their 
ranks  sprang  a king  who  was  destined  to  go  down 
to  posterity  as  the  greatest  ruler  ever  known  in 
Babylon,  Kharnmurabi,  or,  to  give  him  his  Babylo- 
nian name,  Khammu-rapaltu.  He  overcame  Kudur-  I 
Lagamar  — who  had  devastated  Northern  Baby-' 
Ionia — as  well  as  Eri-Aku  of  Larsa,  and  the  father 
of  the  latter  Kudur-Mabug,  who  shared  the  throne 
with  him,  and  succeeded  in  bringing  about  such 
complete  union  between  North  and  South  Baby- 
lonia, that  from  his  time  onwards,  with  scarcely  an 
interruption  worth  mentioning,  the  city  of  Baby- 
lon remained  for  fifteen  hundred  years  the  political 
centre  of  Babylonia. 

These  are  assuredly  most  singular  and  remarkable 
facts,  which  have  so  far  never  been  clearly  explained 
by  any  historian  or  Assyriologist,  simply  because  the 
Arabian  origin  of  what  is  known  as  the  first  dynasty 
of  the  metropolitan  rulers  of  Babylon  had  not  been 
hitherto  recognized.  Babylonia  was  then  at  the 
close  of  a long  period  of  development;  from  hence- 
forward we  are  confronted,  in  so  far  as  Babylonian 


1 The  Arabian  origin  of  a part  of  this  dynasty  was  first  recognized  a 
few  years  ago  by  Professor  Sayce  of  Oxford  ; but  I have  recently  been 
able  to  prove  conclusively  that  the  whole  dynasty  is  Arabian  (cf.  Hil- 
precht’s  Recent  Research  in  Bible  Lands  (Philadelphia,  1896),  pp.  131 — • 
144,  and  the  Zeitschrift  der  Deutsch.  Morgenl.  Gesellsch .,  vol.  xlix.,  pp. 
524—28  : Leipzig,  1895). 


42 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


civilization  is  concerned,  by  a spirit  of  conservatism 
which,  in  some  respects,  tended  towards  fossilization  ; 
a precisely  similar  state  of  things  is  observable  in  the 
history  of  Egypt.  With  the  Arabs,  however,  came  a 
current  of  new  life-giving  elements  to  the  rescue  of 
the  already  effete  civilization  of  Babylonia.  It  was  not 
long  before  they  succeeded  in  bringing  about  the  first 
real  unification  of  the  empire.  No  doubt  this  had 
also  been  the  aim  of  the  other  alien  races  in  the  south, 
such  as  the  Elamites,  Eri-Aku,  and  Kudur-Mabug ; 
unfortunately  the  Elamite  civilization  belonged  to 
the  same  stock  as  the  Babylonian,  and  therefore 
suffered  from  the  same  defects;  consequently, in  the 
long  run,  they  were  unable  to  make  head  against  the 
youthful  vigour  of  the  Arabs.  We  must  not  run 
away  with  the  idea,  however,  that  these  latter  were 
nothing  more  than  mere  nomads,  absolutely  innocent 
of  any  trace  of  culture.  East  Arabia — and  it  was 
from  thence  Khammurabi’s  dynasty  took  its  origin 
— had  been,  as  we  have  seen  above,  for  nearly  one 
thousand  years  in  intimate  contact  both  with  Su- 
merians and  Elamites.  The  beginnings  of  Arab 
civilization  which  confront  us  on  all  sides  in  South 
Arabia,  from  the  middle  of  the  second  millennium 
B.c.  onwards,  represented  by  traces  of  mighty  build- 
ings and  by  numerous  inscriptions,  must,  in  Kham- 
murabi’s time,  have  already  begun  to  develop. 
Throughout  Northern  Arabia,  too,  both  in  the  East 
(Magan)  and  in  the  West  (Melukhkha),  civilization 
must  have  made  great  progress  just  then.  For  at 
this  very  time  occurs  the  memorable  period  of  the 
Shepherd  Kings  or  Hyksos  in  Egypt,  whose  Arabian 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  43 

origin,  in  the  face  of  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
both  native  and  Greek  tradition,  can  hardly  be  dis- 
puted. Thus  we  see  the  two  most  ancient  civilized 
states  of  the  world  simultaneously  fall  a prey  to  the 
Arabs,  while  these  latter  were  as  yet  a semi-nomadic 
people.  In  both  cases  the  strangers  were  not  long 
in  becoming  assimilated  to  the  ancient  countries 
they  had  conquered  : the  Hyksos  to  the  Egyptians, 
the  Arabs  who  had  forced  their  way  into  Northern 
Babylonia  to  the  Babylonians. 

As  to  the  Elamite  princes,  Eri-Aku  of  Larsa  and 
his  father  Kudur-Mabug,  besides  the  fact  that  the 
former  was  dethroned  by  Khammurabi,  we  gather 
from  a number  of  original  inscriptions,  two  further 
items  of  information,  of  a totally  unlooked-for  and  yet 
mutually  confirmatory  character.  In  the  first  place, 
we  learn  from  what  is  manifestly  an  extremely  ancient 
Hebrew  tradition,  in  Gen.  xiv.,  that  the  kings  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrha  (who  were,  of  course,  Amor- 
ites)  had  for  twelve  years  been  vassals  of  a certain 
king  Chedor-Laomer  of  Elam  ; in  the  thirteenth  year 
they  rebelled,  and  in  the  fourteenth,  Chedor-Laomer 
took  the  field  against  them  with  his  allies,  king 
Amraphel  of  Shinar  (Northern  Babylonia),  king 
Arioch  of  Ellasar,  and  king  Tidal  of  Goi  [Goiim, 
R.  V.].  Further,  a tablet  discovered  in  London,  by 
Mr.  Pinches,  only  a part  of  which  has,  unfortunately, 
been  preserved,  tells  of  a victory  obtained  over  Elam 
by  the  Babylonian  king  Khammurabi ; on  the  back 
of  the  tablet  his  adversaries  are  mentioned  by  name, 
viz.  Kudur-dugmal,  Eri-Aku,  and  Tudghul  (or  Tud- 
khul).  Although,  therefore,  the  event  referred  to 


44 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


is  totally  distinct  from  that  mentioned  in  Gen.  xiv., 
the  names  of  the  parties  concerned  are  the  same,  viz. 
Khammurabi  = Amraphel,  Eri-Aku  = Arioch,  Tudg- 
hul  = Tidal,  and  Kudur-dugmal  = Chedor-Laomer. 
In  connection  herewith  it  should  be  noted  that 
Lagamar  (or  Lagamal)  is  the  name  of  an  Elamite 
goddess  mentioned  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  and 
that  Larsa  and  Ellasar  are  the  same  name  (a  fact 
which  had  been  recognized  before).  In  conclusion, 
Scheil  has  recently  discovered  among  the  early 
Babylonian  documents  a letter  from  Khammurabi  to 
a certain  Sin-iddinam  of  Yamutbal,  in  which  mention 
is  made  of  the  overthrow  of  Kudur-lagamar.  The 
only  point  which  remains  to  be  settled  is  the  pre- 
cise relationship  between  Kudur-Mabug,  prince  of 
Yamutbal  (a  part  of  Elam),  and  Kudur- Lagamar  (or 
-Lagmal,  or  -Dugmal) ; probably  they  were  brothers, 
or,  at  any  rate,  nearly  related,  for  the  title  “ Prince  of 
Martu”  (i.e.  of  Palestine)  occasionally  assumed  by 
Kudur-Mabug,  and  the  fact  that  Martu  was  sub- 
jugated by  Kudur-Lagamar  (which  we  gather  from 
Gen.  xiv.),  must,  naturally,  have  some  connection 
with  one  another.  The  theory  of  modern  critics  of 
the  Bible,  that  Gen.  xiv.  was  not  written  till  the 
time  of  the  Babylonian  Captivity,  and  is  merely  a 
free  reproduction  of  a cuneiform  record  by  some 
learned  Rabbi,  must  be  absolutely  rejected. 

It  may  now  be  asked,  what  historical  deductions 
are  to  be  drawn  from  all  these  records  of  the  time  of 
Khammurabi  and  Eri-Aku— records  which,  owing  to 
their  fundamental  importance  to  students  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, it  is  intended  to  deal  with  more  fully  later 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


45 


on?  They  are  briefly  as  follows  : the  Elamites  and 
their  kinsfolk,  the  kings  of  Larsa,  had  succeeded  in 
subjugating  the  “countries  of  the  West,”  as  the 
kings  of  Ur  had  done  before  them.  It  is  at  this 
juncture  that  the  Hebrew  tradition  fixes  the  migra- 
tion of  Abraham  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  through 
Haran,  into  Palestine.  When,  however,  the  Arab 
dynasty  of  Northern  Babylonia  under  Khammurabi 
drove  the  Elamites  out  of  the  land,  the  supremacy 
over  the  “ countries  of  the  West  ” naturally  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Babylonians,  and,  as  a matter  of 
fact,  inscriptions  have  now  been  discovered  in  which 
Khammurabi  and  one  of  his  successors  expressly 
add  after  the  title  “ king  of  Babylon,”  the  further 
title  “ king  of  Martu.”  It  was  not  till  long  after- 
wards that  this  Babylonian  sovereignty  of  the  West 
was  gradually  surrendered  to  the  Egyptian  Pha- 
raohs. When,  therefore,  we  find,  as  we  do  in  the 
Tel-el-Amarna  tablets,  i.e.  about  1400  B.c.,  the  Baby- 
lonian script  and  language  in  general  use  as  the 
medium  of  official  communications  throughout  Pal- 
estine and  Syria,  and  that  they  were  also  employed 
in  diplomatic  correspondence  between  Babylonia  (i.e. 
Palestine)  and  Egypt,  we  know  that  this  is  merely  an 
after  effect  of  the  political  hegemony  so  long  en- 
joyed by  Babylon  in  the  countries  of  the  West. 
Apart  from  such  knowledge,  the  fact  would  be  sim- 
ply unintelligible.  But,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  this 
knowledge  throws  a new  light  on  a whole  host  of 
other  facts,  and  especially  on  the  religious  history 
of  the  Old  Testament.  For  the  present,  we  must 
be  content  to  insist  on  the  fact,  that,  even  at  the 


46 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


commencement  of  the  second  millennium  before 
Christ,  Palestine  and  Phoenicia  had  fallen  completely 
under  the  influence  of  Babylonian  civilization,  an 
influence  from  which  neither  the  Phoenicians  nor  the 
Canaanites,  nor  any  other  lesser  nation  settled  be- 
tween the  Mediterranean  and  the  Euphrates,  can 
have  possibly  escaped. 

How  these  forces  of  civilization,  which  originally 
emanated  from  Babylon,  came  to  make  their  way 
into  Egypt  after  the  close  of  the  Hyksos  period 
(during  the  so-called  Later  Empire)  is  a matter  of 
history  : the  old  Egyptian  civilization,  which  had  by 
this  time  sunk  into  a mummified  condition,  derived 
new  impulses  and  a totally  fresh  colouring  from  it. 
Thanks  to  her  growing  political  influence  under 
this  later  empire,  Egypt,  in  her  turn,  reacted  on 
Phoenicia  and  Syria.  We  must  not  forget,  however, 
that  a large  part  of  this  territory  had  previously 
been  for  a considerable  period  an  Egyptian  province 
under  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  dynasties.  It 
will  be  necessary,  therefore,  to  extend  our  inquiries 
to  a still  earlier  epoch.  In  the  first  place,  we  must  en- 
deavour to  ascertain  whether,  since  the  Babylonian 
records  have  yielded  so  rich  a harvest,  the  Egyptian 
inscriptions  cannot  be  made  to  afford  us  some  infor- 
mation in  regard  to  the  state  of  Palestine  during  the 
period  prior  to  Abraham.  And  though  the  total 
amount  of  information  concerning  this  remote  epoch, 
which  we  can  gather  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  may 
not  be  very  large,  it  nevertheless  includes  some  facts 
of  considerable  importance.1 

1 Cf.  W.  Max  Muller's  epoch-making  work,  Asien  und  Europa 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  4/ 

Even  during  the  Old  Empire,  or  what  is  known  as 
the  Pyramid  Period,  it  had  been  the  ambition  of  the 
Egyptians  to  secure  a firm  foothold  both  in  the  Si- 
naitic  peninsula  and  in  Palestine  as  well.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  the  first  of  these  objects  under  an  early 
Pharaoh  Snofrui  and  his  successors  ; the  inhabitants 
of  the  Sinaitic  region,  which  had  become  important 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Egyptians  on  account  of  its  cop- 
per mines  and  malachite  quarries,  were  designated 
either  by  the  general  title  of  inti  (Troglodytes,  or 
Cave-dwellers),  or  by  the  special  name  of  Mentu 
(. Menzu ).  This  name  came  later  on  to  be  pronounced 
Menti  or  Meti,  and  even  at  an  early  date  the  cognate 
form  Metthi  (pronounced  Mizzi)  seems  to  have  come 
into  use. 

Of  still  greater  importance  for  our  purpose  is  the 
earliest  mention  of  a campaign  against  the  Asiatic 
(' Amu ) “ Lords  of  the  Sands  ” ( keru  ska)  in  the  time 
of  the  sixth  Dynasty.  The  objective  of  this  expedi- 
tion was  nothing  short  of  the  Philistine  coast.  As 
the  inhabitants  of  this  region  are  described  as  “ reb- 
els,” it  would  seem  as  though,  even  at  that  date,  a 
part  of  Southern  Palestine  was  regarded  as  an  Egyp-  } 
tian  possession.  That  the  population  was  not  wholly 
a nomadic  one  is  evident  from  a reference  to  the  fig- 
trees  and  vines  which  the  Egyptians  boast  of  having 
laid  waste  there.  The  term  'Amu,  which  was  applied 
in  the  earliest  times  to  the  whole  of  the  Beduin  and 
semi-Beduin  races  of  the  adjacent  Semitic  countries, 
is  probably,  as  W.  Max  Muller  suggests,  derivable 

nach  altdg.  Denkmalern , Leipzig,  1893,  for  the  evidence  of  the  inscrip- 
tions in  support  of  the  following  statements. 


48 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


from  the  javelin  or  boomerang,  which  was  their  fa- 
vourite weapon  : the  Egyptians  afterwards  extended 
the  term  to  all  Asiatics  (including  the  Hittites).  Dr. 
Glaser1  puts  forward  the  plausible  conjecture,  that 
the  biblical  name  “ Ham  ” in  the  ethnological  list  of 
Genesis  x.  was  originally  the  same  word.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  the  name  'Amu  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Hebrew  word  'am  = “ people,”  nor  with  the  divine 
appellation  'Amm,  which  we  find  frequently  intro- 
duced into  Arab,  and  also  ancient  Hebrew,  personal 
names.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  deal  with  this 
word  at  greater  length  hereafter.  Thus,  according 
to  Glaser,  the  Katabani,  a nation  of  Southern  Ara- 
bia, call  themselves  “ Children  of  'Amm  ” ( walad 
f Amm ),  a name  which  has  undoubtedly  some  connec- 
tion with  the  title  “ Beni  * Ammon  ” (sons  of  Ammon), 
as  frequently  applied  to  the  Ammonites  of  the  coun- 
try east  of  Jordan. 

It  is  a pity  that  there  are  no  personal  names  to  be 
found  among  these  early  Egyptian  references  to  Ara- 
bia and  Southern  Palestine;  they  would  have  been 
a most  valuable  index  to  the  characterand  language 
of  the  inhabitants  of  these  countries.  Luckily,  how- 
ever, there  have  been  handed  down  to  us  from  the 
twelfth  dynasty  ( i.e . the  beginning  of  what  is  known 
as  the  “ Middle  Empire”),  and  therefore,  most  fortu- 
nately, a period  prior  to  the  time  of  Abraham,  two 
detailed  narratives-— one  of  an  Arabian  embassy,  and 
the  other  of  a journey  to  Edom  (Southern  Palestine) 
— from  which  we  can  obtain  most  valuable  details 
in  regard  to  the  formation  of  personal  names. 

1 Ausland,  1891,  p.  49. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  49 

I shall  first  take  the  narrative  of  the  adventures  of 
an  Egyptian  worthy  named  Sinuhit  among  the  Syrian 
Beduins.1  Sinuhit  was  obliged  to  fly  from  Egypt, 
and  was  lucky  enough  to  make  his  way  under  cover 
of  night  past  the  line  of  forts  near  the  Bitter 
Lakes  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Suez  Canal,  which  pro- 
tected the  frontier  against  the  Beduin.  A nomadic 
chieftain  took  pity  on  the  half-famished  wanderer, 
and  bringing  him  to  his  tribe  invited  him  to  remain 
with  them.  Sinuhit,  however,  for  greater  safety, 
preferred  to  retreat  to  some  place  farther  away 
from  Egypt ; he  was,  therefore,  passed  on  “ from  one 
tribe  to  another  ” till  he  at  length  arrived  in  Qedem 
[Kaduma],  the  country  of  the  Bni  Qedem  [Kadmo- 
nites]  or  “ Sons  of  the  East”  (Gen.  xv.  19  ; Job  i.  3, 
etc.),  i.e.  among  the  Beduin  of  the  country  east  of 
the  Jordan.  Here  he  remained  fora  year  and  a half 
under  the  protection  of  a king  named  Ammlanshi , 
who  is  described  as  Prince  of  Upper  Tenu  (after- 
wards simply  Prince  of  Tenu);  he  here  fell  in 
with  other*  Egyptian  refugees,  and  finally  Ammian- 
shi  gave  him  his  own  daughter  in  marriage,  and 
bestowed  on  him  the  government  of  Ia'a  [Aia] 
(Jericho?),  a district  on  the  frontier.  “There  are 
figs  there  and  vines ; it  yields  wine  in  plenty  and  is 
rich  in  honey;  its  olives  are  many  and  fruit  of  all 
kinds  is  found  on  its  trees  ; corn  and  barley  are  there 
and  flocks  without  number.”  W e are  told  that  Sinuhit 
spent  many  years  there,  that  his  children  “ became 

1 Cf.  Ad.  Erman,  Aegyptenund  agyptisches  Leben  im  Altherthum, 

Tubingen,  1885,  pp.  494 — 7,  and  quite  recently  G.  Maspero,  The  Dawn 
of  Civilization,  2nd  edition,  London,  1896,  pp.  471 — 3. 

4 


50 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


as  heroes,  each  a defender  of  his  tribe,”  1 and  that  he 
himself  “ subdued  every  nation  that  he  came  near, 
and  drove  them  from  their  pastures  and  their  wells, 
laid  hands  on  their  flocks,  carried  off  their  children, 
despoiled  them  of  their  sustenance  and  slew  their 
people  with  his  sword  and  with  his  bow.”  He  also 
came  off  victor  in  a duel  with  a valiant  man  of  Tenu 
who  had  grown  envious  of  the  multitude  of  his  flocks. 
At  last  this  nomadic  existence  began  to  pall  upon 
Sinuhit,  and,  having  presented  a petition  to  Pharaoh, 
he  obtained  permission  to  return  to  the  Egyptian 
court  and  spend  the  rest  of  his  days  there.  There- 
upon he  left  to  the  Beduin  “ the  lice  of  the  desert, 
and  coarse  garments,  the  sand  to  those  who  dwelt 
thereon,  and  the  oil  of  the  trees  to  those  who  anoint- 
ed themselves  therewith,”  and  was  able  once  again 
to  enjoy  in  their  stead  all  those  delights  which  the 
more  refined  Egyptian  civilization  had  to  offer  him. 

The  Asiatic  Beduin  who,  in  addition  to  their 
pastoral  pursuits,  also  occasionally  dealt  in  corn 
and  wine,  are  here  for  the  first  time  called  Seti  (or, 
according  to  the  popular  Egyptian  etymology, 
“ archers  ”),  which  is  identical  with  the  Babylonian 
term  Suti , the  name  given  in  the  Tel-el-Amarna  tab- 
lets to  the  nomadic  tribes  who  roved  to  and  fro  be- 
tween Mesopotamia  and  Palestine.  The  land  of 
Tenu,  which  closely  resembles  in  sound  the  Biblical 
“ Dedan  ” 2 and  the  Babylonian  name  for  the  “ coun- 

*This  statement  throws  an  important  light  on  the  history  of  the 
constitution  of  Semitic  tribes  and  tribal  allies  in  primitive  times  (cf., 
for  instance,  the  sons  of  Jacob,  and  the  Twelve  Tribes  of  Israel). 

3 Tana  is  mentioned  in  the  Tel-el-Amarna  tablets  as  being  hostile  to 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  5 1 

tries  of  the  West,”  “ Tidanu,”  is  manifestly  the  land 
of  Tana . 

Of  even  greater  importance  than  these  are  the  two 
following  identifications.  First,  the  name  of  the  king 
of  Tana  Amianshi , or,  to  be  more  exact,  Am-mui'-en- 
shi,  i.e.  Ammi-anisha.  This  name,  which  means  “ my 
uncle  (i.e.  God  as  my  paternal  friend)  is  propitious,” 
is  found  in  South  Arabian  inscriptions  under  the 
form  Ammi-anisa  : the  Arabs  in  the  time  of  Moham- 
med made  a deity  whom  they  called  'Amm-anas,  out 
of  a certain  famous  'Ammi-anisa  of  the  land  of 
Khaulan.  From  this  it  is  clear  that  these  names 
compounded  with  'A mini,  in  Avhich  God  is  described 
as  “ my  uncle  ” (in  the  sense  of  “ my  paternal  friend  ”), 
are  to  be  found  among  the  Semites  of  Western  Asia 
as  early  as  the  time  of  the  twelfth  Egyptian  dy- 
nasty. The  second  important  feature  in  the  story  of 
Sinuhit  is  the  homely  and  simple,  but  none  the  less 
life-like  picture  which  it  gives  us  of  the  lives  and 
pursuits  of  these  Semitic  nomads.  We  have  here  a 
near  approach  to  the  state  of  things  described  in  the 
traditions  of  the  Hebrew  Patriarchal  period,  and 
this  too  in  an  epoch  prior  to  that  of  Abraham. 

But  the  Egyptian  monuments  are  still  more  help- 
ful. The  narrative  of  events  in  the  time  of  the 
Pharaohs  Amenemhait  I.  and  Usirtasen  I.,  referred 
to  on  a previous  page,  is  concluded  by  a most  inter- 


Gebal  ; we  come  upon  the  following  passage  in  a letter  from  Rib-Adda 
of  Gebal  to  Pharaoh  (Winckler,  No.  69.  11.  51—55):-— 

“ Moreover  the  king  of  the  land  of  Tana  had  gone  out  against  Zumur 
(Simyra),  and  desired  to  draw  near  to  Gebal,  but  had  no  water  to  drink, 
and  returned  to  his  own  land.” 


52 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


/" 


esting  pictorial  illustration  dating  from  the  time  of 
tTsirtasen  II.  We  have  here  the  picture  of  a long 
procession  of  Asiatic  (fAmu)  merchants,  executed 
in  colours.  These  are  the  well-known  thirty-seven 
Asiatics  on  the  tomb  of  Khnumhotpu,  who  are  rep- 
resented in  the  act  of  offering  to  the  said  Khnum- 
hoptu  (a  viceroy  under  the  Middle  Empire)  a quan- 
tity of  eye-paint  (mesdemet *),  one  of  the  staple  arti- 
cles of  commerce  produced  by  distant  Arabia.  The 
history  of  this  word  is  an  interesting  one.  But  even 
more  interesting  are  the  figures  themselves,  men, 
women,  and  children,  in  their  splendid  garments  of 
many  colours.  One  man  leads  with  him  a goat  as  a 
present,  another  a gazelle,  while  a third  bears  an 
eight-stringed  lyre,  a fourth  a javelin  with  bow  and 
arrows,  and  a fifth  and  sixth  each  bear  a lance. 
Beasts  of  burden  are  represented  by  two  donkeys, 
on  one  of  which  two  children  are  seated.  Most  of 
the  figures  wear  sandals,  the  women  apparently  be- 
ing shod  with  regular  buskins.  The  features  of 
these  already  more  than  half-civilized  nomads  are  of 
a strongly  marked  Jewish  type.  One  of  the  most 
interesting  points  about  them,  however,  is,  unques- 
tionably, the  name  of  their  chief  who,  as  the  ac- 
companying inscription  informs  us,  was  a certain 
Ebshaa.  This  is  a name  which,  like  many  others, 
can  only  be  rightly  explained  by  means  of  the  South 

1 Mesdemet  really  means  “ a box  for  the  preservation  of  Stibium,”  i.e. 
of  antimony  powder,  a substance  in  general  use  among  the  women  of  the 
East  for  painting  the  border  of  the  eyelids  with  ; the  word  has  come 
down  to  us  with  but  slight  modification  in  the  Arabic  ithmid (pronounced 
is  mid). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  53 

Arabian  inscriptions.  There  it  is  given  in  the  com- 
plete form  Abi-yathua  (pronounced  approximately 
Abt-yasu'a  or  Abi-yaskua).  Among  the  Hebrews, 
and  this  too  in  pre-Mosaic  times,  it  appears  as  Abi- 
shua  (i  Chron.  viii.  4 ; v.  30).  Like'Ammi-anisa,  this 
name  also  possesses  a religious  significance,  being 
equivalent  to  “ My  Father  ( i.e.  God)  helps.”  From 
its  formation  it  evidently  belongs  to  an  important 
group  of  personal  names  which,  unlike  the  Baby- 
lonian, is  only  met  with  among  the  Western  Semites, 
i.e.  the  Hebrews,  Arabs  and  Aramaeans,  but  chiefly 
among  the  two  former,  and  for  the  most  part  in  the 
earliest  periods,  that  is,  at  a time  when  the  Hebrews 
were  still  more  than  half  Arabs.  The  deep  signifi- 
cance which  this  name  possesses  for  the  student  of 
religious  history  will  be  treated  more  fully  in  a spe- 
cial chapter.  For  the  present  it  is  sufficient  to  have 
established  the  fact  that  two  such  names  occur  even  h 
at  this  very  early  period,  and  have  come  down  to  us 
from  a source  of  such  unimpeachable  trustworthi- 
ness as  the  Early  Egyptian  monuments.  Moreover, 
we  shall  presently  come  upon  the  name  Abi-yaskua 
in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  a few  decades  after 
Abraham,  where  it  appears  as  “ Abishua”  and  “ Ibi- 
shu,”  and  is  likewise  borne  by  a Western  Semite. 

Before  proceeding  to  deal  with  monuments  be- 
longing to  a period  nearer  to  the  time  of  Abraham, 
it  will  be  well  in  connection  with  the  term  “West- 
ern Semites  ” employed  above,  to  correct  an  error 
which,  though  of  old  standing,  is  nevertheless  to  be 
found  in  most  modern  works.  I refer  to  the  divis- 
ion of  the  Semitic  race  into  Northern  and  Southern 


54 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Semites,  a division  which,  though  still  common 
enough,  is  altogether  incorrect,  and  likely  to  lead  to 
theories  which  are  both  linguistically  and  histori- 
cally erroneous.  According  to  this  view,  the  other 
Semites  would  stand  in  relation  to  the  Arabs  ( for 
that  is  what  the  Southern  Semites  really  were ) as  a 
distinct  philological  grouping,  with  much  the  same 
bearings  as  the  other  Indo-European  speaking 
peoples  have  to  the  Aryan,  restricting  the  latter  term 
to  the  Indian  and  Iranian  branches.  In  confutation 
of  this  assertion  I pointed  out  as  far  back  as  1 88 1 
and  1884,  that  in  designating  the  date-palm,  olive, 
fig-tree,  vine,  and  other  cultivated  trees,  Babylonian- 
Assyrian  either  employs  terms  totally  different  from 
those  used  in  the  other  Semitic  tongues,  or  shows 
that  some  of  these  trees  (such  as  the  fig-tree,  and 
apparently  the  olive  and  vine  as  well)  were  origi- 
nally unknown,  and  only  in  course  of  time  came  to 
be  indicated  by  Western-Semitic  loan-words.1  It  is 
evident,  therefore,  that  in  many  of  their  more  im- 
portant and  specially  characteristic  features,  the 
Canaanitish  ( i.e . Hebrew),  Arabic  and  Aramaic 
tongues  form  a group  by  themselves,  and  are  quite 
distinct  from  Baby  Ionian- Assyrian.  This  is  sup- 
ported by  the  fact  that  in  addition  to  the  botanical 
terms  mentioned  above,  there  are  a large  number  of 
other  words  both  concrete  and  abstract  in  which 
a similar  relation  is  to  be  observed  ; the  different 

1 Semilische  Volker  und  Sprachen , p.  63  (and  442)  ; Die  Sprachges- 
chichtliche  Stellung  des  Babylonischen  in  the  Etudes  arche'ol.,  etc dMiees 
& C.  Leemans,  Leide,  1885,  pp.  127 — 9 ; all  the  views  here  expressed  are 
reiterated  and  amplified  in  my  Aufsdtze  und  Abhandlungen  (1892),  pp. 
92 — 123. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  55 

characters  of  the  perfect  tense,  and  other  important 
grammatical  considerations  affording  further  con- 
firmation of  this.  Finally  (and  it  is  on  this  point 
that  I here  desire  to  lay  the  greatest  stress)  the 
peculiar  method  of  name-giving  adopted  by  the 
Western-Semites  constitutes  a marked  distinction 
between  them  and  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians. 
From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  my  authority  for  the 
introduction  of  this  new  term,  “ Western  Semites,” 
is  based  on  grounds  of  a most  varied  character,  both 
linguistic  and  material.  It  should,  moreover,  be 
noted  that  within  the  Western  Semitic  group,  there 
is,  at  any  rate  from  a linguistic  standpoint,  a closer 
bond  of  union  between  the  Arabs  and  Aramaeans 
than  exists  either  between  the  Arabs  and  Hebrews 
or  between  the  Aramaeans  and  Hebrews,1  a fact 
which  the  history  of  the  Aramaeans  amply  confirms. 
I shall  enter  more  fully  into  this  last  point  when  I 
come  to  the  chapter  on  Isaac  and  Jacob.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  theory  recently  put  forward  by 
some  scholars  who  maintain  that  Aramaic  is  more 
closely  connected  with  the  Assyro-Babylonian  than 
with  its  Western-Semitic  sister  tongues,  is  entirely 
erroneous.  In  this  case,  it  is  clear,  the  influence 
exercised  for  so  many  centuries  by  Assyro-Baby- 
lonian on  Aramaic,  notably  on  the  East-Aramaic 
dialects  (both  in  vocabulary  and  in  various  points  of 
grammar)  — - an  influence  which  can  be  readily  ex- 
plained by  geographical  propinquity  - — has  been 
mistaken  for  an  intimate  organic  relationship  be- 
tween the  two  languages. 

1 Cf.  my  Aufsatze  und  Abhandlungen,  pp.  no — 114. 


56 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ARABS  IN  BABYLONIA  BEFORE  AND  IN 
THE  TIME  OF  ABRAHAM 

We  have  already  seen  that  about  one  hundred 
years  prior  to  the  events  related  in  Gen.  xiv.,  a 
dynasty  of  Arabian  origin  had  made  itself  master  of 
Northern  Babylonia.  The  establishment  of  these 
Western-Seinitic  nomads  in  Babylon  was  probably 
the  result  of  an  invasion  on  their  part,  or  perhaps 
the  consequence  of  a peaceful  and  gradual  infusion 
into  the  country  of  Arab  elements,  an  infusion  which 
may  have  taken  place  during  the  rule  of  the  so- 
called  “later”  kings  of  Ur.  Even  at  that  early 
period,  the  countries  of  the  West,  including  a part 
of  Arabia,  were  very  closely  connected  with  Ur,  a 
fact  which  is  attested  by  numerous  passages  in  the 
Nitr  Bel  referred  to  above.  As  far  back  as  1 88 1 , 
Professor  Delitzsch  in  his  book,  Wo-lag  das  Paradies  ? 
p.  133,  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that  these  astro- 
logical notes  “ dwell  with  marked  insistence  on  the 
countries  of  the  West  ( i.e . Phoenicia  or  Palestine) 
and  frequently  contain  phrases  such  as:  ‘ when  such 
and  such  a thing  comes  to  pass  (in  the  heavens), 
then  shall  a mighty  king  arise  in  the  West,  then 
shall  righteousness  and  justice,  peace  and  joy  reign 
in  all  lands,  and  all  nations  shall  be  happy,’  with 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  S7 

many  other  similar  predictions.”  He  further  points 
out  that  the  New  Testament  story  of  the  Magi,  who 
no  doubt  had  access  to  these  early  Babylonian  astro- 
logical tablets  is  closely  connected  herewith;  for 
they  must  have  read  in  those  records  about  the 
new-born  King  of  the  West  whose  star  they  fol- 
lowed as  far  as  Bethlehem. 

In  regard  to  the  close  relation  which  existed  be- 
tween Martu  (the  land  of  the  Amorites,  the  West)  and 
Ur,  we  find  the  following  passage  in  the  NAr  Bel : 
“ (when  such  and  such  a thing  occurs  in  the  heavens) 
then  shall  he  (the  god  in  question)  give  to  the  King 
of  Kishar  (i.e.  of  Akkad  or  Northern  Babylonia) 
Ur  and  Martu  for  a possession  ” ; and  again  : “ then 
shall  an  oracle  be  given  to  the  King  of  Kishar  : ‘ Ur 
is  to  be  destroyed  and  its  walls  are  to  be  cast 
down  ’ ” ; and  yet  again  : “ Disaster  for  Akkad,  good 
fortune  for  Elam  and  Martu  ” (cf.  Kudur-Lagamar, 
at  one  time  Lord  of  the  West  (Gen.  xiv.)  and  Kudur- 
Mabug,  whose  son  Eri-Aku  was  master  of  Ur  and 
King  of  Martu  as  well) ; and  yet  again : “ then  a 
west  wind  gets  up,  the  King  of  the  West  (lives) 
long  days,  his  reign  grows  old  (i.e.  lasts  until  he  is 
a very  old  man).”  There  is  undoubtedly  some  con- 
nection between  these  predictions  and  the  fact  that 
12  stars  of  the  land  of  Akkad  and  12  stars  of  the 
land  of  Martu  are  mentioned  immediately  after  in 
the  same  astrological  work.  Further  light  is  thrown 
on  them  if  we  note  that  in  the  time  of  Abraham  a 
district  near  Sippara  bore  the  name  “ Field  of 
Martu  ” (var.  Amurri,  spelt  A-mur-ur-ri-i ),  appar- 
ently because  a colony  of  Amorites  had  settled 


58 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


there.  The  Babylonians  derived  their  ordinary 
word  for  the  West-wind  moreover,  from  the  terri- 
torial name  of  Martu,  and  at  this  very  period  the 
name  “ God  (of)  Martu  ” is  frequently  used  for  the 
Babylonian  god  of  the  air  (Bel-Ramman),  (cf.  He- 
brew Rimmon),  at  first  on  seals,  and  afterwards  in 
sale-contracts  of  the  time  of  Abraham.  Later  on 
it  seems  to  have  disappeared  altogether  from  every- 
day use. 

The  fact  that  with  what  is  known  as  the  First 
Dynasty  of  Northern  Babylonia,  the  Arabs  came  into 
power  there,  is  conclusively  proved  from  the  personal 
names  which  have  come  down  to  us,  including  not 
only  the  names  of  the  eleven  kings  of  that  dynasty, 
but  those  of  a large  number  of  their  subjects.  A 
host  of  such  names,  belonging  to  persons  of  all  sorts 
of  callings,  have  been  preserved  in  the  numerous 
contract-tablets  of  this  period,  and  especially  in  the 
lists  of  witnesses  which  occur  in  nearly  all  of  them. 

There  are  two  methods  by  which  we  may  distin- 
guish these  Arabic,  or,  to  use  once  for  all  the  more 
general  term,  Western  Semitic,  names  from  those  of 
genuine  Babylonian  origin.  In  the  first  place,  the 
inscriptions  have  already  familiarized  us  with  such  an 
enormous  number  of  Babylonian  personal  names  of 
almost  every  historical  epoch,  that  we  can  generally 
tell  on  a priori  grounds,  whether  a name  has  the  true 
Babylonian  ring  or  not,  and  this  the  more  readily 
from  the  fact  that  the  names,  as  far  as  their  com- 
position and  formation  are  concerned,  are  fairly 
uniform  in  character  from  the  earliest  period  to  the 
time  of  Cyrus.  To  this  class  belong  especially  all 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  59 

personal  names  containing  either  the  title  of  a dis- 
tinctively Babylonian  deity,  or  some  verb  or  noun 
which  is  specially  peculiar  to  the  Assyro-Baby- 
lonian  language.  All  words,  therefore,  which  pre- 
sent any  obvious  variation  from  this  standard  may, 
primd  facie , be  suspected  to  be  of  foreign  origin. 
The  easiest  names  to  distinguish  are  the  non-Semitic, 
and  especially  the  Elamitic,  such  as  Kudur-Nak- 
hunti,  Simtishilkhak,  Kudur-Lagamar,  or  the  Kas- 
site,  such  as  Burna-buriash,  Kadash man-Khardas, 
etc*  To  the  Semitic  scholar  the  foreign  origin  of 
such  vocables  is  apparent  at  a glance.  To  single  out 
Western-Semitic,  and  especially  Arabic  names,  is  a 
good  deal  more  difficult,  for  the  Western-Semitic 
tongues  have  many  roots  and  stems  in  common  with 
Assyro-Baby Ionian,  and  when  a personal  name  con- 
tains some  noun  or  verb  which  has,  so  far,  never  been 
represented  in  the  portion  of  Babylonian  literature 
with  which  we  are  acquainted,  but  is  occasionally 
met  with  in  some  other  Semitic  language,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  this  verb  or  noun  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  absent  from  Assyro-Baby  Ionian. 
This  difficulty  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  we  often 
find  in  personal  names  words  which  are  either  obso- 
lete or  very  rarely  used  in  ordinary  speech. 

The  case'  is  somewhat  different,  however,  when  a 
personal  name  contains  verb-inflections  or  other 
grammatical  elements  which  are  not  to  be  found  in 
the  literary  Semitic  language  of  Babylon  as  known 
to  us  from  about  3000  B.c.  onwards.  Thus  in  Baby- 
lonian the  imperfect  of  malak  is  imlik,  of  shakan,  ish- 
kun,  etc.  etc.,  while  in  Hebrew  it  is,  respectively, 


6o 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


yimloch,  yishkon,  in  Arabic  yamlik,  yaskun,  i.e.  in  both 
Hebrew  and  Arabic  an  initial  Jod  [y]  is  prefixed, 
while  Baby  Ionian- Assyrian  has  merely  “ i.”  If,  there- 
fore, we  come  upon  names  like  Ycimlik-ilu,  Ya'kub-ilu, 
Yarbi-ilu,  in  the  time  of  the  First  Dynasty  of  North- 
ern Babylonia,  the  verb-inflections  show  that  there 
is  every  chance  in  favour  of  the  owner  having  been 
a Western-Semite  (or,  to  be  more  precise,  an  Arab) 
rather  than  a Babylonian.  Or,  again,  let  us  take,  for 
an  instance,  a royal  name  like  Samsu-iluna , in  which 
the  form  Samsu  (in  true  Babylonian  we  should  expect 
Shamshu)  at  once  strikes  us  as  foreign,  while  it  is 
scarcely  possible  to  translate  this  name  otherwise 
than  “the  sun  is  our  god.”  Now  the  Babylonian 
word  for  “our”  is  ni  (thus,  iluni  = “our  god”),  in 
Hebrew  it  is  -mi,  and  in  Arabic  (and,  indeed,  in  Ara- 
maic also,  though  this  fact  is  of  no  importance  in 
connection  with  the  period  in  question)  it  is  -na. 

Finally — and  now  we  come  to  the  most  conclusive 
evidence  of  all — we  find  in  the  South-Arabian  in- 
scriptions, and  to  some  extent  also  in  Hebrew  tradi- 
tion (and  that  too  in  the  tradition  of  the  earliest 
times)  an  entirely  original  method  of  name-forma- 
tion, which  must  be  placed  in  a class  by  itself,  owing 
to  its  peculiarly  religious  character.  To  this  class 
belong  a great  many  names  which,  though  of  un- 
doubted Semitic  origin,  yet  cannot  for  some  one  of 
the  reasons  mentioned  above  be  regarded  as  pure 
Babylonian,  or  at  any  rate  as  necessarily  Babylo- 
nian, proper  names. 

The  obvious  course  to  follow  in  our  investigations 
will  be  first  of  all  to  consider  carefully  the  composi- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BV  THE  MONUMENTS 


6 1 


tion  and  religious  import  of  the  genuine  Babylonian 
personal  names,  and  then  endeavour  to  obtain  by  a 
stricter  scrutiny  of  the  South-Arabian  personal 
names,  some  definite  criterion  by  which  to  test  the 
remaining  names  of  supposed  Western-Semitic 
origin.  The  Hebrew  names  I purposely  leave  en- 
tirely on  one  side  for  the  present. 


Now,  first  of  all,  in  regard  to  personal  names  of 
undoubted  Babyloniaii  origin , we  are  already  ac- 
quainted with  a fairly  large  number  of  Semitic 
names  belongingto  a period  prior  to  the  first  North- 
ern Babylonian  dynasty.1  I use  the  word  “ Semitic  ” 
merely  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  though  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  there  were,  especially  in  these  earlier 
epochs,  many  Sumerian  names  as  well,  even  if  we 
have  to  admit  that  many  apparently  Sumerian  names 
are  merely  ideographic  forms  of  genuine  Semitic 
words.  The  great  majority  of  the  Semitic-Babylo- 
nian  names  contain  the  name  of  some  god  as  an  ele- 
ment, nearly  all  the  personages  in  the  Babylonian 
Pantheon,  known  to  us  from  the  religious  texts, 
being  found  among  them. 

Thus  we  find  at  a very  early  date  such  names  as 
Nardm-Sin  (“  Beloved  of  Sin  or  of  the  moon-god”), 
Amil-Bel  (“  Man  of  Bel  ”),  Ini-Ma-lik  (“  Apple  of  the 
Eye  of  the  god  Malik”;  Malik  meaning,  however, 
originally  “ king  ”),  Ishbi-Nirgal  (“  The  god  of  war  is 
satiated  ”),  Ishmi-Dagan  (“  Dagon  hearkened,” — 

1 For  the  sake  of  brevity,  I intend  henceforward  to  describe  this  dynas- 
ty by  the  name  of  its  most  famous  and  prominent  member,  Hammurabi 
(or  rather  Khammurabi),  the  sixth  of  the  eleven  kings  belonging  to  it. 


62 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Dagon  being  another  name  for  Bel),  Nur-Rammdn 
(“  Light  of  the  Storm-god  ”),Sin-bani(“  Sin  creates”), 
Gimil-Ea  (“Gift  of  Ea”),  Gimil-Samas  (“Gift  of 
Samas,  or  of  the  sun-god  ”).  Names  compounded 
with  the  general  word  ilu  = “ god,”  such  as  Ilu-bani 
(“  God  creates  ”),  are  rare  at  this  period,  though  it  is 
true  that  we  find  a name  like  Ibni-ilu  (“  god  created 
it  ”)  in  one  of  the  very  earliest  inscriptions  extant.1 

For  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  not  familiar  with 
the  names  of  the  Babylonian  gods,  I may  mention 
that  the  god  of  the  sky  (really  of  the  Celestial 
Ocean)  Nun  or  Anum  (shortened  into  Nu  or  Anu,) 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  Babylonian  Pantheon ; he 
had  a son,  In-lilla , the  god  of  the  air  (the  Semitic 
Bel  or  " Lord  ”)  and  In-lilla  had  a son  Ea  (Sumerian 
En-ki,  “Lord  of  the  Earth”),  the  god  of  earth  and 
sea.  These  three,  Anu,  Bel,  and  Ea  form  the  earliest 
triad  of  divinities ; yet  they  do  not  occupy  a prom- 
inent place  in  personal  names.  In  order  to  bring 
such  names  into  a form  more  easily  apprehended  it 
became  the  practice  at  an  early  date  to  replace  Bel, 
the  god  of  the  air,  by  Ramman  (ideogram  Im),  god 
of  the  storm  and  wind  ; Ea,  god  of  the  earth  and  sea, 
by  Sin  the  moon-god  (in  South  Babylonia  Sin  re- 
ceiving the  special  name  of  Uru-ki  or  Siski  =“  Pro- 
tector of  the  Earth”).  For  the  atmosphere  in  mo- 
tion is  to  the  atmosphere  at  rest,  as  the  concrete  is 
to  the  abstract,  and  the  moon  which  transmits  the 

1 This  is  a Sacrifice-list  written  in  semi-hieroglyphic  characters  ; it 
should,  however,  be  noted  that  even  In  this  case  there  is  a possible  alter- 
native reading,  viz,  Anu-bani,  or  Ibni-Anu  (“The  god  of  the  sky  creates 
or  created  ”),  the  symbol  in  question  being  used  for  both  Anu  (sky,  or 
god  of  the  sky),  and  ilu  (god  = Hebr.  el). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  63 


reflected  light  of  the  sun  by  night  was  recognized 
even  by  the  Babylonians  as  the  satellite  of  the  earth. 
We  therefore  find  that  Ramman  and  Sin  occur  with 
relatively  great  frequency  in  personal  names,  as 
does  Samas  (properly  Shamash  or  Shamshu ),  the 
sun-god ; this  latter,  in  the  genealogical  system  of 
Babylonian  deities,  corresponds  to  Mirri-Dugga  or 
A mar-uduk  (Marduk,  the  Biblical  Merodach)  the 
morning  sun  rising  out  of  the  ocean.  The  sister 
and  consort  of  the  sun-god  is  Ishtar,  his  hostile 
brother  is  Nirgal  (Sumerian  Girra :),  who  again  is 
mated  with  Ghanna1  or  Gula;  another  name  for 
Nirgal  was  Nin-Girsu  (Lord  of  Girsu).  Nirgal  is 
also  a solar  deity,  but  like  his  “ double  ” Nin-dar  (or 
Ninip)  he  represents  the  evening  sun  after  it  has 
sunk  beneath  the  horizon,  or  the  winter  sun  which 
appears  at  no  great  height  above  it.  Nindar  is, 
therefore,  more  particularly  the  war-god,  and  Nirgal 
the  god  of  the  plague  and  of  husbandry  ; regarded 
as  planets,  Nindar  is  Mars,  Nirgal  Saturn,  Marduk 
Jupiter,  Ishtar  Venus,  and  a god  not  mentioned 
above,  Nabu  or  Nusku  (the  biblical  Nebo,  in  Sume- 
rian, Nin-gish-zidda,  Dun-pa-uddu,  Pa-sagga , Pa-bilsag , 
or  simply,  Pa;  in  Semitic,  Ishii  = Fire)  is  Mercury. 
Whereas  Nindar  (spelt  Ninip)  has  no  place  in  the 
genealogical  system,  but  is  replaced  by  Nirgal — a 
deity  who  appears  comparatively  seldom  in  per- 
sonal names— Nebo,  on  the  other  hand,  is  joined 

1 Symbol  ab  (= house)  with  inserted  symbol  kha  (=fish).  The  reading 
Nina , which  is  frequently  given  in  modern  Assyriological  works,  is  un- 
doubtedly wrong  ; the  reading  Ghanna,  suggested  by  me  in  1885,  is 
practically  certain ; Gula  (properly  G til  la)  is  only  a later  form  of 
Ghanna. 


64  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

either  with  Marduk  or  with  his  brother  Nirgal  as 
their  son,  his  wife  being  the  harvest-goddess,  Nisa- 
ba,  who,  however,  also  bears  the  special  Semitic 
name  of  Tashmit  (i.e.  hearkening). 

These  are  the  more  important  among  the  deities 
of  Ancient  Babylonia,  especially  those  of  whom  a 
knowledge  is  essential  to  a right  understanding  of 
personal  names.  There  is  nothing  furthermore  so 
conducive  to  the  correct  apprehension  of  the  latter 
as  a proper  appreciation  of  the  relationship  between 
the  various  gods.  The  Babylonians  themselves  were 
not  very  clear  on  this  point,  though  now  and  then 
we  get  a more  definite  glimpse  of  these  relations. 
When,  for  instance,  in  the  journey  of  Ishtar  to 
Hades  we  read — 

Then  went  forth  Samas,  before  Sin  his  father  wept  he, 

Before  Ea,  the  king,  came  his  tears, 

the  so-called  parallelismus  membrorum , which  is  the 
guiding  principle  of  all  early  Semitic  poetry  at  once 
suggests  that  Sin,  the  moon-god,  and  Ea,  the  earth- 
god,  are  interchangeable  terms;  just  as  “wept”  is 
equivalent  to  “ came  his  tears,”  so  Sin  is  equivalent 
to  Ea.  According  to  the  genealogical  system,  Me- 
rodach  (Marduk),  the  Morning  Sun,  was  the  son  of 
Ea;  here  Samas,  the  Sun,  is  the  Son  of  Sin.  Ishtar, 
as  sister  and  wife  of  Merodach,  is  thus  daughter  of 
Ea,  while  in  the  Epos,  on  the  contrary,  she  is  repre- 
sented as  daughter  of  Sin,  who  is  thus  assumed  as 
the  equivalent  of  Ea.  Ea’s  wife  is  called  Dam-gal- 
nunna  (Great  Wife  of  the  Celestial  Ocean),  while  Sin’s 
consort  receives  the  designation  Nin-gal  (“Great 
Mistress  ”),  to  which  I may  add  that  the  signs  for 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  6$ 

" Nin  ” and  “ Dam  ” are  almost  identical  in  meaning. 
Ea  is  called  Gushgin-banda , that  is  “ Small  Gold,”  by 
which  silver  is  meant,  and  Sin  is  also  distinguished 
by  the  appellation  Lugal-banda , “ The  Little  King,” 
Silver  being  the  symbol  of  the  Moon,  as  Gold  is  of 
the  Sun.  As  Ea,  according  to  the  genealogical  sys- 
tem is  the  son  of  Bel,  Sin,  on  the  other  hand,  as  well 
as  his  equivalent,  Lugal-banda,  is  represented  in  the 
religious  texts  as  the  first-born  of  Bel,  who  further- 
more appears  in  the  genealogical  system  as  Son  of 
Anu,  and  in  the  religious  texts— -through  his  repre- 
sentative Ramman — also  as  Son  of  Anu,  the  Celes- 
tial Deity.  Wherever  the  Fire-God  (Gibil) — who  is 
on  other  occasions  identified  with  Nabu  or  Nusku 
—-is  also  called  Son  of  Anu,  Bel  or  Ramman,  the 
God  of  Lightning,  is  meant.  As  for  the  female 
divinities,  the  wife  of  Bel  is  designated  Ninlilla, 
“Mistress  of  the  Air,”  or  Ba'u;W\iQ  of  the  Ea,  as 
has  been  already  said,  is  called  Dam-gal-Nunna ; 
while  the  wife  of  Merodach  (or  Samas),  is  named 
Ishtar  (sometimes  Ninni , or  even  A z),  and  the  con- 
sort of  Nergal  (or  Nin-ib),  Gula.  They  are  collective- 
ly feminine  personifications  of  the  Celestial  Ocean, 
and  it  is  only  as  a Planet-God  that  Ishtar  has  the 
distinctive  designation  of  the  Morning  and  Evening 
Star.  The  readiness  with  which  these  female  deities 
are  made  to  represent  each  other  tends  to  produce 
the  impression  that  there  was  but  one  Babylonian 
goddess,  that  is  to  say  Ishtar,  the  Astarte  of  the 
Phoenicians.  But  here  again,  the  various  positions 
assigned  to  her  in  the  genealogical  tree  enable  us  to 
give  her  her  proper  place.  Ishtar,  the  daughter  of 
Anu,  is  the  wife  of  Bel;  “Ishtar,  the  first-born 


66 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


daughter  of  Bel  ” is  the  wife  of  Ea ; “ Ishtar,  the 
daughter  of  Sin  ” (which  means  the  same  thing  as 
“ the  daughter  of  Ea  ”)  is  the  real  Ishtar  (who,  as 
wife  of  the  sun-god,  also  bears  the  distinctive  title 
Anunit  or  At),  or  the  name  may  also  refer  to  Ea’s 
other  daughter,  Gula. 

An  exceptionally  large  number  of  personal  names 
belonging  to  the  closing  centuries  of  Khammurabi’s 
dynasty  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  epoch  of 
the  so-called  “later”  kings  of  Ur  (7 ride  supra,  pp.  36 
et  seq.).1  Thousands  of  contract-tablets  and  trading- 
accounts  of  this  period  have  been  acquired  during 
the  last  few  years  by  the  museums  in  Constantinople, 
Philadelphia,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  apparently  in  Lon- 
don also  : unfortunately  very  few  of  these  have  as  yet 
been  published.  Quite  recently,  however,  an  Amer- 
ican scholar  has  printed  a number  of  these  tablets 
in  extenso , so  that  we  are  now  in  a position  to  pro- 
nounce judgment  on  the  personal  names  which 
occur  in  them.  The  twenty  records2  edited  by  Dr. 
Arnold  contain  nearly  a hundred  personal  names, 
and  of  these  hundred  names,  about  a dozen  contain 
the  word  Gimil  — gift,  and  about  twenty  the  word 
Amil  — man,  both  of  them  in  conjunction  with  the 
name  of  a god.  Here  gimil  is  represented  by  the 
symbol  shu  — hand,  and  amil , in  some  cases,  by 
the  symbol  gnllu  — human  being,  in  others  by  the 


1 The  majority  of  the  names  quoted  above,  on  pp.  61 — 62,  are  taken 
from  inscriptions  of  a still  earlier  period. 

2 Ancient  Babylonian  Temple  Records  in  the  Columbia  University  Li- 
brary, edited  with  transcriptions  into  Neo-Assyrian  characters  by  W.  R. 
Arnold,  New  York,  1896. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  6/ 


symbol  nr  — man.  As  to  the  names  of  deities, 
Samas,  Sin  (both  in  the  form  En-zu  and  in  the  usual 
South-Baby  Ionian  form  Uru-ki),  Nirgal  and  A'f  are 
the  most  frequent : though  we  also  find  the  names 
of  Ramman,  Ishtar,  Ba’u,  Gula,  Nin-girshu,  Ea,  Mar- 
duk  (in  the  form  Gal-alimma ),  Anu,  Tam  muz  (a  man- 
ifestation-form of  Marduk),  and  a god  called  Shahm 
(in  the  name  Amil-Shalim ),  as  well  as  another  god, 
Damkn  (“  the  gracious  one,”  apparently  a sobriquet 
of  Sin).  Similarly,  there  are  also  a number  of  names 
compounded  with  ilu  = God  e.g.  A mur-ila  = “ I 
beheld  God,”  Ilu-bani  ( vide  supra , p.  62),  Ilu-ni  = “ our 
god,”  Gimil-ili  =“gift  of  God.”  It  is  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  all  these  names,  every  one  of  which 
has  the  true  Babylonian  ring,  are  also  of  genuine 
Semitic  origin,  or  whether  a good  many  of  them 
ought  not  to  be  ascribed  to  Sumerian,  the  language 
of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Babylon.  For  while 
it  is  clear  that  names  which  are  represented  by 
phonetic  elements,  such  as  those  contained  in  bani 
= creating,  amur  — I saw,  ni  = our,  akhu  = brother, 
cannot  be  anything  but  Semitic  ; in  the  case  of  those 
written  ideographically,  we  can  only  say  that  it  is 
possible  but  not  absolutely  certain  that  they  were 
pronounced  in  the  Semitic  manner.  For  instance,  it 
is  conceivable  that  all  names  beginning  with  Ur— 
the  Sumerian  word  for  “ man” — may  have  been  thus 
pronounced,  and  not  perhaps  as  the  Semitic  sound 
A mil.  Possibly  the  numerous  texts  which  have  yet 
to  be  published  may  enable  us  to  clear  up  this  point; 
for  the  purposes  of  our  present  investigation  the 
question  is  of  merely  minor  importance.  So  long  as 


68 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


we  are  in  a position  to  recognize  the  essential  Baby- 
lonian character  of  all  these  names,  and  to  ascertain 
the  true  Babylonian  mental  attitude  which  underlies 
their  formation,  it  is  immaterial  whether  an  element 
in  them  is  pronounced  in  one  way  or  the  other. 

The  personal  names  which  occur  in  deeds  of  sale 
of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty,  to  which  we  shall  now 
turn  our  attention,  present  far  less  difficulty  in  this 
respect.  Here,  names  of  undoubted  Semitic  origin 
are  in  a decided  majority,  even  among  the  docu- 
ments obtained  from  Southern  Babylonia  (Tel  Sifr, 
near  Larsa).1  In  order  to  make  the  matter  more 
generally  intelligible,  I here  append  a list  of  the 
eleven  kings  belonging  to  this  Dynasty  with  the 
length  of  the  reign  of  each. 


Shumu-abi 

• 

• 

. 

15  years, 

Sumu-la-ilu 

, , 

35 

u 

Zabium  or ) 
Zabum  j 

of  the  preceding  king, 

H 

a 

Apil  Sin 

<< 

n 

ll 

18 

u 

Sin-muballit 

it 

ll 

ll 

30 

u 

Khammurabi 

It 

ll 

ll 

55 

u 

Samsu-iluna 

n 

a 

ll 

35 

u 

Abi-eshu’a 

a 

a 

ll 

25 

u 

Ammi-satana 

n 

n 

ll 

25 

u 

Ammi-zaduga 

ti 

n 

ll 

22 

a 

Samsu-satana 

ll 

ll 

ll 

3i 

u 

1 It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that,  so  far  as  I know,  all  of  the  above* 
mentioned  documents  belonging  to  the  time  of  the  later  kings  of  Ur 
come  from  Telloh  in  Southern  Babylonia,  whereas  the  deeds  of  sale  of 
the  subsequent  epochs  belong  for  the  larger  part  to  Northern  Babylonia, 
a region  which  had  been  subject  to  Semitic  influences  from  the  earliest 
times  : this  fact  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  weighing  the  evidence. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  69 

As  nearly  ail  the  contract  tablets  of  this  epoch  are 
dated  in  the  reign  of  one  or  other  of  the  above- 
named  kings,  we  are  justified  in  asserting,  on  a 
priori  grounds,  the  pre-Abrahamic  origin  of  a cer- 
tain number  of  them,  about  twenty-five  in  all  (exclu- 
sive of  those  not  yet  published),  containing  about 
four  hundred  personal  names  ; for,  as  briefly  indicat- 
ed above  (p.  44),  Khammurabi  was  a contemporary 
of  Abraham,  therefore  Khammurabi’s  five  predeces- 
sors and  individuals  who  lived  in  their  time  may  be 
rightly  described  as  pre-Abrahamic.  If  we  include 
the  time  of  Khammurabi  also,  then  the  total  number 
of  personal  names  at  our  disposal  becomes  substan- 
tially larger.  For,  as  far  back  as  1882,  twenty- 
three  sale-contracts  of  the  time  of  Khammurabi,  and 
twenty-three  more  of  the  time  of  his  rival  Eri-Aku, 
or  Rim-Sin  of  Larsa,  were  published  by  Strassmaier 
alone  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Berlin  Congress  of  Ori- 
entalists. To  these  Bruno  Meissner  added  a dozen 
more  (all  of  North  Babylonian  origin)  in  his  Beitrage 
zum  altbabylonischen  Privatrecht,  published  in  1893, 
a work  containing  no  less  than  one  hundred  and 
eleven  contracts  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty.  The 
names  occurring  in  the  period  before,  and  down  to, 
the  time  of  Khammurabi,  however,  supply  enough 
material  to  enable  us  to  determine  the  usual  system 
of  name -formation  which  obtained  in  Babylon  at 
that  time.  But  lest  this  limitation  of  the  field  of 
investigation  should  make  it  seem  as  though  the 
names  prior  to  Khammurabi  differ  from  those  found 
during  and  after  his  time,  I may  as  well  mention 
here  that  the  personal  names  of  the  whole  epoch, 


7 o 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


from  Shamu-abi  down  to  Samsu-satana  are  all  of  the 
same  type,  viz.  pure  Babylonian-Semitic,  with  the 
exception  of  a few  names  of  private  individuals, 
which  I shall  deal  with  later  on ; these  exceptions 
amount  to  about  5 per  cent,  (or  perhaps  more)  of  the 
whole.1 

Let  us  now  examine  the  names  themselves,  and 
the  religious  ideas  of  the  Babylonians  of  that  time  to 
which  they  are  an  index.  The  first  peculiarity  we 
notice  is  that  by  far  the  greater  number  of  these 
names  contain  two  elements,  and  some  of  them  as 
many  as  three.  These  latter,  which  had  hitherto 
only  been  found  among  the  names  of  Babylonian 
and  Assyrian  kings  of  a later  period  {i.e.  about 
1500  B.c.  Cf.  Assur-nadin-akhi  — Assur  giver  of  a 
brother),  are  met  with  here  also,  each  of  them  form- 
ing a whole  sentence.  As  instances  of  such  names 
belonging  to  the  first  half  of  the  Khammu-rabi  Dy- 
nasty, I may  here  mention  Samas-ndr-mate  = Samas 
is  the  light  of  the  country,  Mar tfi-bani-ameli  = The 
Storm-god  is  the  creator  of  mankind,  Sin-kalama-idi 
= Sin  knows  everything,  Mannu-shanin  - Samas  — 
who  can  contend  against  Samas?  ShummaMu-la - 
ilia  — If  god  be  not  my  god  (then  will  such  and 
such  a thing  befall  me) ; to  these  may  be  added  the 
following  names  which  occur  under  the  latter  half 
of  the  dynasty:  Samas -nat sir  - apli  — Samas  is  the 

1 It  is  true  that  the  proportion  is  totally  different  in  the  case  of  the 
eleven  names  of  the  kings  : here  there  are  nine  names  which,  though  of 
Semitic  origin,  are  not  Babylonian,  but  rather  Arabic.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, however,  that  while  the  reigning  dynasty  was  of  foreign  ori- 
gin, the  great  bulk  of  their  subjects  remained  Babylonian  as  before. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


7 1 


guardian  of  the  son,  Sin-nadin-shumi  = Sin  is  the 
donor  of  the  name  ( i.e . the  giver  of  a son),  Samas- 
sliar-kitti  — Samas  is  king  of  justice,  Sin-akliam-idin- 
cim  — Sin  give  a brother,  Mannu-balu-ili  — who  (can 
exist)  without  God,  Ilu-ishme-kharii  — God  listens  to 
the  wretched,  Zanik-pi-shu-Samas  = His  mouth  is 
closed,  O Samas,1  and  finally,  Abum-kima-ili  — A 
Father  like  God. 

Personal  names  composed  of  two  elements  nearly 
all  contain  the  name  of  a god,  sometimes  at  the 
beginning,  sometimes  at  the  end  of  the  compound. 
Let  us  first  examine  those  in  which  the  fifial  element 
consists  of  a divine  name.  Whereas,  under  the  later 
kings  of  Ur,  names  beginning  with  Gimil-  — gift, 
and  Amil-( or  Ur )-  = man,  appear,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  be  in  a majority;2  under  the  Khammurabi  Dy- 
nasty another  set  of  words  come  to  the  front,  e.g. 
those  commencing  with  Ipik-  or  Ipku  = Might  (?), 
Ndr-~  Light,  Arad  — servant,  Tsili—  my  protection, 
ska  — he  of  (i.e.  a retainer  or  servant  of  such  and 
such  a god),  etc.,  etc.  Of  the  names  of  deities  found 
in  conjunction  with  these  elements,  by  far  the  most 
frequent  is  that  of  Sin,  the  moon-god,  who  had  his 
most  ancient  fane  at  Haran  ; in  his  later  holy  temple 
at  Ur  he  was  worshipped  under  the  name  of  Nannar 
(written  Uruki).  At  the  time,  however,  in  which 
these  personal  names  originated  the  cult  of  the 

1 1.f.  he  is  silent  in  thy  presence.  Cf.  ITabakkuk  ii.  20;  Ps.  xxxvii. 
7,  or  perhaps  interrogatively,  “Does  Samas,  then,  close  his  mouth?” 
for  which  parallels  may  be  found  in  Ps.  1.  3 or  xxviii.  1. 

2 Unless,  of  course,  the  evidence  of  the  many  texts  still  unpublished 
should  reverse  this  verdict,  a result  which  for  various  reasons  I do  not 
regard  as  probable.  Cf.  p.  104,  note  1. 


72 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


moon-god  had  spread  over  the  whole  of  Babylonia, 
and  was  undoubtedly  more  popular  than  that  of  any 
other  deity.  It  should  also  be  noted  that  Ur  and 
Haran,  the  chief  centres  of  this  worship  of  the  moon- 
god  are,  at  the  same  time,  the  two  places  which  play 
an  early  and  important  part  in  the  migrations  of  the 
Patriarch  Abraham  ; for  it  was  from  Ur  that  he  set 
out  for  Haran,  and  from  thence  he  afterwards  went 
on  to  Palestine.  Next  to  Sin  the  most  frequent  ele- 
ments in  names  are  Hi  = “ of  God,”  or  ili-shu  = “ of 
his  God,”1  Samas  and  Ramman,  and  the  lesser  gods 
and  goddesses,  such  as  Ishtar,  A'f,  etc.,  occurring 
much  less  frequently.  After  what  has  been  just 
said,  it  is,  perhaps,  hardly  necessary  to  adduce  spe- 
cific examples:  in  addition  to  ordinary  compounds, 
such  as  Ndr-ili-shu , Ndr-Samas,  N fir -Sin  (=  Light  of 
his  god,  Light  of  Samas,  Light  of  Sin  respectively), 
Arad-Rdmman  — servant  of  Rim m on,  Arad  Nirgal 
= servant  of  Nirgal,  we  may  also  notice  such  names 
as  Irishti-A  'i  — My  desire  is  Ai  (Goddess  of  the  sky), 
Imgur-Sin  — Sin  was  gracious,  Ana-pani-ili  = before 
the  face  of  God  (cf.  Num.  vi.  25),  Na-bi-Sin  = Har- 
binger or  Prophet  of  Sin  (or  Harbinger  is  Sin  (?),  cf. 
Bani-Sin  — The  creator  is  Sin),  Sha-Martu  = He  of 
the  storm-god,2  Apil-Sin  — Son  of  Sin,  Bur-Rammdn 

1 1.e.  of  the  special  patron-deity  of  the  person  in  question,  who  seems, 
in  most  cases,  to  have  been  Sin,  though  we  meet  with  such  names  as 
llu-ka-Samas  and  Samas-ilu-ka-ni  = Thy  god  is  Samas. 

2 This  name  is  borne  by  a witness  to  a contract  concluded  under  Apil- 
Sin,  who  is  further  described  as  “son  of  Abi-ramu”  (which  proves  that 
even  at  that  time  there  were  names  similar  to  the  Hebrew  “ Abraham”). 
Meissner,  Beitrage  zum  altbabylonischen  Privcit-recht  No.  hi.  Cf. 
infra  p.  94,  Note  1. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  73 


= scion  of  Ramman,  Pir-i-Ai  = scion  of  A'f,  Mar-Istar 
= Son  of  Ishtar,  Apil-ili-shu  — Son  of  his  God  (cf.  a 
similar  expression  in  the  bi-linear  religious  texts 
“ The  sick  man,  the  son  of  his  god  ”),  Kish-ili  — 
Gift  of  God,  and  Ishmi-Sin  = Sin  gave  ear. 

Even  more  numerous  are  those  names  compound- 
ed of  two  elements  in  which  the  first  element  con- 
sists of  the  name  of  a deity.  From  an  examination 
of  instances  it  is  clear  that  a much  greater  freedom 
was  allowed  in  the  choice  of  verbal  forms  which 
might  be  tacked  on  after  the  name  of  a god.  While 
verbs  and  participles  are  of  comparatively  rare  oc- 
currence as  first  elements,  they  are  quite  common 
as  second  elements.  This  may  be  best  shown  by  a 
series  of  examples.  Siii-rimene,  Ramman-rimeni  = S. 
or  R.  have  shown  mercy  on  me,  Sin-rimenishi  = S. 
have  thou  mercy  on  us,  Beli-ishmeanni  — my  Lord 
hearkened  unto  me,  Sin-shimi  = S.  hearkens,  Samas- 
tairu  — S.  turns  again,  i.e.  is  gracious,  Sin-iragam  = 
S.  makes  protest  (i.e.  in  favour  of  sinners),  Sin-putram 
---  S.  releases  or  frees  (viz.  from  guilt),  Samas-natsir 
= S.  protects,  Sin-magir  = S.  is  compliant,  Sin-liki 
---  S.  accepts  (sc.  my  complaint),  Aku-dainu  = the 
moon-god  is  judge  (viz.  of  the  dead  as  Samas  was  of 
the  living),  Ilu-damik  — God  is  gracious,  Sin-gamil  = 
S.  gives  (cf.  Sin-ikisham  and  Sin-idd inain) , Samas-bani 
— S.  creates,  Sin-muballit  = S.  awakens  the  dead, 
Sin-pilakh  = Fear  Sin!,  Sin-imdki  — S.  is  my  wis- 
dom, Sin-illatsu  = S.  is  his  strength,  Samas-mudi  = S. 
is  omniscient,  Sin-abushu  — S.  is  his  father,  Ilushu- 
abushu  — His  god  is  his  father,  Samas-abuni  = S.  is 
our  father — all  these  are  not  merely  evidence  of 


7 4 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


what  I have  said  above,  but  also  of  the  prevailing 
religious  tendency  in  Babylon — in  spite  of  its  poly- 
theism— shortly  before  Abraham  and  during  his 
time.  It  is,  moreover,  worthy  of  note  that  Ishtar 
scarcely  ever  appears  in  such  personal  names  as 
commence  with  the  name  of  a god  : I have  been 
able  so  far  to  find  among  feminine  names  only  Istar- 
ummasha  — Ishtar  is  her  mother,  and  a few  names  be- 
ginning with  Ai,  such  as  Ai-rishat  = Ai  is  the  high- 
est. Speaking  generally,  the  only  gods  represented 
in  names  of  this  type  are  Sin,  Samas,  ilu  (God),  and 
Ramman  (=  Bel).  Notwithstanding,  therefore,  the 
countless  greater  and  lesser  deities  in  which  Baby- 
lonian Polytheism  abounded,  the  names  in  general 
use  seem  to  prove  that  it  was  only  the  moon,  the 
sun,  and  the  sky  which  conveyed  an  impression  of 
deity  to  the  Babylonian  mind ; and  if  we  substitute 
the  simple  word  “God”  (ilu)  for  the  moon,  the  sun, 
or  the  sky,  these  names  express  no  sentiment  which 
is  inconsistent  with  the  highest  and  purest  monothe- 
ism. The  exalted  conception  of  the  deity  possessed 
by  the  Semites  of  Northern  Babylon  will  be  dealt 
with  later  on,  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  primi- 
tive history  of  Babylon  and  Israel. 

Our  present  object,  however,  in  introducing  all 
these  names,  is  not  so  much  to  show  the  relatively 
high  religious  feeling  which  they  evince,  as  to  put 
before  our  readers  some  of  the  general  principles 
which  underlie  the  formation  of  Babylonian  appella- 
tions, and  to  point  out  a few  of  their  most  character- 
istic elements.  Compared  with  them,  other  names 
which  occur,  it  is  true,  in  the  same  documents,  but 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


75 


which  I have  provisionally  described  as  Arabian, 
seem  obscure  and  unintelligible— -I  refer  to  such 
names  as  Ammi-zaduga , Abi-eshua  (or  A biskua), 
Sumu-abi,  MAdadi,  Zimri-rabi,  Yashup-ilu,  Natunu, 
Yadikhu,  etc.  For  the  individual  constituents  or 
general  meaning  of  such  appellations  we  may  search 
the  Babylonian-Assyrian  vocabulary  in  vain.  The 
key  of  the  enigma  can  only  be  supplied  by  a study 
of  the  system  of  name-formation  which  obtained  in 
Southern  Arabia.  This  system  we  must  now  briefly 
examine  before  concluding  the  present  chapter. 


In  Southern  Arabia  we  come  upon  traces  of  a\ 
high  state  of  civilization  at  a very  early  period./ 
Evidence  of  this  is  supplied  by  the  ruins  of  an- 
cient temples,  towns,  and  aqueducts,  and,  above  all, 
by  the  numerous  inscriptions  which  still  survive. 
These  latter  are  written  in  an  alphabet  which  be- 
longs, at  the  very  lowest  estimate,  to  the  same 
period  as  the  so-called  Phoenician  alphabet,  and 
must  therefore  be  referred,  together  with  the  Phoe- 
nician, and  the  Greek  alphabet,  which  is  derived 
from  it,  to  one  and  the  same  source,  viz.,  the  West- 
ern Semitic^  alphabet,  the  structural  source  of 
which  has  not  yet  been  made  out.  This  circum- 
stance alone  is  an  argument  in  favour  of  ascribing 
these  inscriptions  to  the  middle  or  perhaps  even  the 
beginning  of  the  second  millennium  before  Christ. 
The  question  as  to  whether  they  take  their  origin 
from  the  Egyptian  hieratic  script  or,  as  seems  far 
more  probable,  from  the  ancient  Babylonian  is  quite 
a separate  one. 


;6 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


The  South  Arabian  inscriptions  are  to  be  respec- 
tively distributed  among  the  kings  of  Ma  an,1  those  of 
the  Hadramaut  and  those  of  Kataban — whose  mon- 
uments have  lately  been  discovered  by  Dr.  Glaser 
— and  to  the  kings  of  Saba  (Sheba).  They  are 
written  in  two  dialects — the  Hadramautic,  Kata- 
banian,2  and  Minasan3  inscriptions  being  in  Minsean, 
while  the  Sabaean  inscriptions  are  in  the  Sabaean 
dialect.  The  earliest  Sabaean  inscriptions,  those  in 
which  the  rulers  are  referred  to — not  as  kings — but 
as  priest-kings  ( mukarrib  or  makrfib),  belong  to  the 
commencement  of  the  first  millennium  before  Christ, 
being  certainly  not  later  than  800  B.C.,  and  probably 
as  early  as  900  B.c.  or  1000  B.c. ; in  the  Hebrew  tra- 
dition we  find  a queen  of  Saba  mentioned  as  early 
as  the  time  of  Solomon.  Next  in  order  come  those 
Sabaean  inscriptions  in  which  the  rulers  are  named 
simply  “ Kings  of  Saba  ” (700—200  B.c.),  and  lastly 
the  neo-Sabaean  inscriptions  (in  which  the  title  ap- 
pears as  “ King  of  Saba  and  Dhu-Raidan  ”),  the  last 
of  these  being  as  late  as  600  a.d.  (from  about  300 

1 Usually  pronounced  Md  in ; the  history  of  the  pronunciation  of 
similar  names  in  Southern  Palestine  and  the  region  east  of  Jordan 
seems  to  indicate  that  the  original  pronunciation  must  have  been  Ma'dn, 
the  Hebrew  word  in  both  these  cases  being  A/dSn  (from  Aldan).  At 
the  present  day,  however,  we  have  Tel  Mdin  (south  of  Hebron),  and 
Mdin  (from  whence  we  get  the  river  Zerka  Molin').  The  Babylonians 
probably  transcribed  it  by  Magan. 

2 Cf  Eo.  Glaser,  Die  Abessinier  in  Arabien  undin  Afrika , Mu- 
nich, 1895,  p.  72. 

3 The  Greeks  (in  the  Septuagint  and  the  writings  of  Strabo)  translit- 
erate the  Hebr.  Mddn  and  Arab.  Aldan  into  M ivdioi.  Hence  the 
terms  Minseans  and  Mineeic  have  passed  into  common  use,  and,  for  the 
sake  of  convenience,  I adopt  them  in  the  present  work. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  77 

A.D.  onwards  it  is  “ King  of  S.  and  Dh.R.  and  Had- 
ramaut  and  Yemnat”).  Of  the  Hadramautic  in- 
scriptions, unfortunately  only  two  or  three  have  as 
yet  been  discovered,  and  of  these  only  one  has  any 
claim  to  high  antiquity,  though  it  is  quite  certain 
that  there  were  kings  of  the  Hadramaut  in  the  time 
of  the  priest-kings  of  Saba,  and  probably  long  be- 
fore it : of  the  Katabanian  inscriptions,  none  of 
which,  I regret  to  say,  have  yet  been  published,  a 
part  at  any  rate  are,  according  to  Glaser,  contempo- 
rary with  the  earliest  Sabaean  records.  Finally,  the 
Minaean  inscriptions,  several  of  which  have  also  been 
found  at  el-Oela  in  N. W.  Arabia,  ought,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  several  scholars  who  have  made  a special 
study  of  the  subject,  to  be  assigned  to  the  period 
between  900  and  200  B.c.  One  of  them,  which  is 
specially  important,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  con- 
tains a reference  to  Egypt  and  to  Minaean  colonies 
in  Edom  has  been  attributed  to  the  time  of  Camby- 
ses  (525  B.C.),  although  an  ingenious  theory  put  for- 
ward by  Dr.  Glaser  and  supported  by  him  with  ex- 
traordinary ability,  assigns  the  kingdom  of  Ma'an 
to  a pre-Sabaean  era,  a conjecture  that  seems  to  be- 
come every  day  more  probable.  While  Glaser  (and 
at  one  time  I was  prepared  to  agree  with  him)  refers 
the  earliest  of  these  inscriptions  to  the  end  of  the 
Hyksos  period,  I now  confidently  believe  that  the 
South  Arabian  kingdom  of  the  Minaean  dynasty, 
must,  at  the  very  latest,  have  flourished  in  the  pe- 
riod between  Solomon  and  Moses : at  any  rate,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  inscription  mentioned  above 
(which  other  authorities  wish  to  assign  to  the  reign 


78 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


of  Cambyses)  belongs  to  this  epoch,  and  Glaser  has 
already  adduced  evidence  from  monuments  lately 
discovered  by  him,  to  prove  that  the  kingdom  of 
Ma'an  was  totally  1 destroyed  by  Kariba-ilu  YVatar, 
one  of  the  priest-kings  of  Saba. 

The  personal  names  which  occur  in  all  these  in- 
scriptions— and  especially  in  the  earliest  of  them, 
such  as  the  Minasan  and  early  Sabaean,  are  of  a fairly 
uniform  type,  their  main  characteristics  being  briefly 
as  follows. 

We  are  struck  first  of  all  by  the  fact  that  though 
the  South  Arabian  religion  was  of  a polytheistic 
character — as  the  ex  voto  offerings  to  the  various 
gods  conclusively  show  2 — yet  the  names  of  the  va- 
rious gods  are,  in  almost  every  instance,  excluded 
from  personal  names  in  favour  of  the  generic  term 
ilu  — “ God.” 

The  usual  sequence  in  which  the  gods  are  men- 
tioned in  the  Minaean  inscriptions  is  as  follows : 
Athtar  (pronounced  Astar)  of  Kabadh , Wadd , an - 
Karih  (another  rendering  is  Nakrah :),  Athtar  of  Yah- 
rak,  and  the  Lady  of  Nashk.  To  these  some  inscrip- 
tions add  an  “ Athtar  the  Ascendant  ” ( i.e . appar- 
ently, the  Morning  Star),  and  an  Athtar  of  Yahir. 
Athtar  and  Wadd  occupy  the  highest  place.  The 
first  of  these,  though  originally  borrowed  from 
Babylon,  and  identical  with  the  goddess  Ishtar  (the 

1 Those  who  hold  that  the  kingdoms  of  Ma'an  and  Saba  were  contem- 
porary, must  necessarily  assume  in  this  case  that  the  Minsean  kingdom 
came  into  existence  again  after  its  overthrow  by  Saba,  a view  which  is, 
for  various  reasons,  exceedingly  improbable. 

2 The  majority  of  the  inscriptions  are  ex  voto  offerings  to  the  gods ; 
even  the  few  purely  historical  monuments  partake  of  this  character. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  79 

Phoenician  Astarte)  is  nevertheless  always  repre- 
sented as  a male  deity.  He  was  also  worshipped  in 
the  Hadramaut,  though  there  his  son  Sin  (also  a 
Babylonian  importation,  but  in  Babylon  the  rela- 
tionship was  reversed,  Sin  being  regarded  as  the 
father  of  Ishtar)  took  a more  prominent  place.  As 
to  Wadd,  he  is  the  personification  of  Love,  just  as 
an-Karih  1 is  the  personification  of  Hate  : we  have 
here  an  Arabian  counterpart  of  the  hostile  brothers 
Marduk  and  Nirgal  (cf.  Osiris  and  Set).  Yet  in  spite 
of  all  this  we  scarcely  ever  find  anything  but  ilu  — 
God,  in  Minaean  personal  names.  Wadd  occurs  but 
seldom  (as  in  Saada-  Wadd  = Wadd  hath  blessed  it, 
or — a better  readin g—Sddu-Wadd  = The  prosperity 
of  Wadd),  an-Karih  is  not  found  at  all;  the  word 
“ goddess  ” only  once,  viz.  in  Sddu-ilat  — Prosperity 
of  the  Goddess,  = Sabaean,  Sa'd-Lat ; and  Athtar 
but  rarely,  and  generally  in  an  abbreviated  form 
Atht , e.g.  Hama- At ht  = Athtar  protected  it,  Haupi- 
At/it  — give  health,  O Athtar,  Bi- Athtar  — By  Ath- 
tar, and  in  a few  other  instances  : far  more  frequent 
are  names  like  Yahmi-ilu  = may  God  protect,  and 
Haupi-ilu  = God  give  health. 

We  find  a very  similar  state  of  things  in  early 
Sabasan  inscriptions.  In  the  Sabaean  Pantheon 
Athtar  was  also  worshipped  in  various  places  and 
temples,  but  Wadd  no  longer  accompanies  him,  but 

1 This  reading  (in  which  the  “ n ” is  assumed  to  be  equivalent  to  the 
old  North-Arabian  article)  is  based  on  the  fact  that  in  certain  South- 
Arabian  inscriptions  the  North- Arabian-Ph oen ician  god  Ba'al  appears  as 
an- Ba'al  (according  to  another  rendering  Nab'al);  it  is,  therefore,  prob- 
able that  an-Karih  is  originally  of  North-Arabian  origin. 


8o 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Almaku-hd  = his  ( i.e . the  Heaven’s)  Lights ; and  in 
place  of  the  generic  “ goddess  ” we  have  the  Sun 
(Shamsum)  represented  as  female,  accompanied  by 
a whole  host  of  other  lesser  gods,  who  must  origi- 
nally have  been  nothing  more  than  local  deities,  such 
as  Talab , Aum , etc.,  etc.  Now,  it  is  interesting  to 
observe  that  it  is  not  till  we  come  to  neo-Sabsean 
inscriptions  that  Shamsum,  Aum,  Athtar,  and  other 
names  of  deities  (never,  it  is  significant  to  note,  that 
of  Almaku-hu)  appear  as  the  second  element  in  per- 
sonal names,  and  even  then  they  do  not  occur  nearly 
so  often  as  ilu  — God,  which  moreover  appears  fre- 
quently as  a first  element. 

The  first  deduction — and  a very  important  deduc- 
tion it  is,  even  when  taken  by  itself — we  can  draw 
from  the  above  facts  is,  that  South  Arabian  personal 
nomenclature  of  the  earliest  times  contains  prac- 
tically no  appellations  save  those  compounded  with 
ilu  — God,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  religion  of 
those  who  bore  these  names  was  admittedly  poly- 
theistic. If  we  consider  how  frequently  primitive 
ideas  continue  to  persist  in  the  personal  names  of 
any  race,  this  would  seem  to  indicate  that  there 
must  have  been  a time  in  the  history  of  Arabia  when 
these  gods — a number  of  whom,  such  as  Athtar, 
Sin,  and  the  Hadramautic  deity  An  bay  ( = Nebo), 
recently  discovered  by  Glaser,  were  certainly  im- 
ported from  outside— did  not  receive  worship,  and 
when  some  higher  form  of  devotion  of  a type,  which 
involuntarily  reminds  one  of  what  we  are  told  about 
Melchisedek  in  the  Old  Testament,  must  have  pre- 
vailed. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  8 1 

Nor  is  this  by  any  means  the  sole  deduction  to  be 
drawn  from  the  facts.  It  is  of  special  interest  for  us 
to  learn  all  that  is  said  of  God  in  South  Arabian 
personal  names,  and  particularly  the  special  peri- 
phrases for  the  simple  word  ilu  which  were  adopted 
in  these  names. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  characteristic  that  when- 
ever the  word  “ God  ” appears  as  the  first  element 
of  a name,  it  is  nearly  always  accompanied  by  a 
suffix  denoting  the  first  person  singular  of  the  pos- 
sessive pronoun,  thus  ill  = my  God.  In  the  follow- 
ing examples  I have  purposely  chosen  appellations 
containing  such  predicates  as  occur  most  frequently 
in  the  second  elements.  For  instance  : 


Ili-awwas 

my  God  has  presented  1 

wahaba 

tt 

“ “ given 

dhara'a 

t < 

“ “ created 

(or 

tt 

“ “ sown  the  seed) 

ii-dharaha 

tt 

“ is  resplendent 

“-zdada 

tt 

“ commands  awe  (?) 

“-yada'a 

tt 

“ is  (all)  knowing 

“ -yap?  a 

tt 

“ shines  (or  is  resplendent) 

“- kariba 

tt 

“ has  (or  is)  blessed 

li-ma-nabata 

“ stepped  into  the  light,  shone 

4 lJazza 

a 

“ is  mighty 

il-amida 

tt 

“ came  forth  (to  help) 

il-padaya 

tt 

“ has  set  free 

“-rabbi 

tt 

“ increase  ! (probably  imperative) 

“-raft  a' a 

tt 

“ has  healed 

“-rad saw  a 

tt 

‘ ‘ is  well  pleased 

1 As  the  vowel  points  are  not  given  in  the  South  Arabian  script,  it  is 
possible  that  in  many  of  these  names  we  ought  to  read  an  imperative 
instead  of  a third  person  of  the  perfect  {e.g.  Ili-awwis  = Give,  O my 

God). 


6 


82 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Ili-sharraha  my  God  causes  to  thrive 
“ -shara'a  “ “ has  ordained,  ordered 

“ -scimi'a  “ “ “ hearkened 

“ -sa'ada  “ “ “ blessed 

A large  number  of  these  predicates  also  occur  in 
reverse  order,  and  in  these  cases  the  verb  preceding 
the  word  ilu  (God)  is  generally  in  the  so-called  im- 
perfect tense  (with  a present  or  probably  even  an 
optative  significance),  eg.  YasmaMu  = May  God 
listen  to  it ! Yu'awwis-ilu  — May  God  grant  it ! 
and  many  others  of  a similar  kind,  including  names 
in  which  occur  verbs  not  mentioned  in  the  above 
list,  such  as, — Yadk-kur-ilu  = May  God  remember 
it ! Yahmi-ilu  — God  protect  it ! Yahram-ilu  = God 
averts  it ! etc.,  etc.  Names  consisting  of  a verb  in 
the  imperfect  by  itself,  such  as,  Yashdpu  = he  re- 
gards, are  abbreviated  forms  of  a longer  name  as, 
in  this  case,  Yashdpu-ilu . Moreover,  the  perfect 
tense  also  appears  as  a first  element,  eg.  Kariba-ilu 
= God  blessed  it,  Warazva-ilii  = God  cast  it  (sc. 
the  lot),  * Adhara-ilu  — God  defended  it,  though  in 
the  case  of  words  like  these,  it  is  sometimes  diffi- 
cult, in  the  absence  of  vowel  points,  to  be  quite  cer- 
tain whether  the  first  element  is  a noun  or  a verb ; 
Wahbu-ili,  Zaidu-ili , Widddu-ili  ( = Present  from 
God,  Gift  of  God,  Love  of  God)  are,  for  instance, 
more  probable  readings  than  Wahaba-ilu  ( — God 
gave  it)  Zayyada-ilu  and  Waddada-ihi.  We  also 
find  semi-verbal  adjectives  (often  from  the  same 
verbs  that  are  elsewhere  combined  with  the  name 
of  a deity)  used  as  personal  names,  eg.  Natanum 
( = Giver  meaning  originally  God  and  not  the 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  83 

bearer  of  the  name),  Tsaduku , Yathu'u  and  Yatlii'um , 
Yapiu , Akibu  (with  a strong  £-sound)  and  other 
names  of  one  element,  to  which  we  shall  again  refer 
later  on. 

We  find  moreover — and  here  we  come  to  the 
most  characteristic  feature  of  this  method  of  name- 
formation— instead  of  the  names  originally  begin- 
ning with  the  word  Hi  = my  God,  a number  of 
synonymous  terms,  (to  some  extent  periphrases  of 
the  divine  name),  taking  its  place.  The  more  fre- 
quent and  important  of  these  terms  are  Abi  — my 
Father,  ammi  = my  Uncle,1  (in  the  sense  of  “ guar- 
dian ” or  “protector”)  or,  in  place  of  it,  khdli  — my 
Uncle;  we  also  occasionally  find  dddi  — my  Cousin 
and  akhi  = my  Brother,  and  lastly  sum-hu  = His 
Name.  But  even  more  general  expressions  such  as, 
dhimri  — my  Protection,2  yitlii  — my  Help  (or  Sal- 
vation), nabti  = my  Splendour,  tsidki  ~ my  Justice, 
wifi  = my  Fear,  with  a few  others  of  still  vaguer 
significance,  such  as,  ma  di,  tubbcii  (perhaps  = malki 
= my  king?)  and  naslii  are  used  quite  indifferently 
with  ill  = my  God.  We  thus  obtain  at  one  and  the 
same  time  a confirmation  of  the  phrases  contained 
in  the  above  list  and  a whole  series  of  additional 
predicates  of  the  deity,  as  the  following  names— se- 


1 Probably  = Paternal  Uncle  as  opposed  to  Kha'i  = brother  of  my 
mother.  In  these  personal  names  ammi  never  occurs  in  the  sense  of 
“ my  people.” 

2 The  vocalization  has  been  arrived  at  through  names  that  occur  in 
the  cuneiform  inscriptions  such  as  Zimri-rabi  and  Zimrida  (from 
Dhimri-yada'a),  and  also  by  comparison  with  Hebrew  names  such  as 
Zimriy  Yisfi  i [hhi]  Tsidki -yahu  \Zidkyah\  and  Yir'i-yah. 


84 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


lected  either  for  their  frequent  occurrence,  or  special 
significance — will  readily  prove  : 

Abi-amara , Sumhu  - amara , Khali- amara , Ammi-amaray 
Yith'i-amara , Wir'i-amara  — My  father  etc.  has  commanded. 

' Ammi-anisa  — My  uncle  is  well  affected  (cf.  supra,  p.  51). 

Sumhu-apika  — His  name  is  powerful  (or  excellent) — with  a 
strong  £-sound. 

Abi-wakulay  Khali-ivakula  — My  father  etc.  rules. 

Sumhu-watara  = His  name  is  above  all  others. 

Abi-dhamara  — My  father  was  protecting. 

*' Ammi-dhara' a = My  uncle  created  (or  sowed  seed). 

*Abi-za'ada  = My  father  inspires  fear  (or  awe). 

*Abi-yadafa,  Ammi-yada'a,  Khali-yada'a,  Dhimri-yada'a  — 
My  father  etc.  is  omniscient ; cf.  also  the  inverted  forms 
Yadda-abuy  Yada'a-ilu , Yada'a-sumhu . This  last  name  taken 
in  connection  with  that  of  Sumaida  which  occurs  in  the  later 
South  Arabian  tradition,  seems  to  point  to  Sumhu-yada'a  as  a 
name  which  must  have  originally  existed  somewhere  among  the 
inscriptions.  Cf.  p.  no. 

Sumhu-yafii'a,  Ammi-yapia,  YitJCi-yapia,  Nabti-yapia  = His 
name  etc.  shines. 

Abi-yathu'a  (cf.  supra,  p.  53),  Ammi-yathua  — My  father  etc. 
helps. 

* Abi-kariba,  Ammi-karibay  Khali-kariba,  Dadi-kariba , Akhi- 
karibay  Su7n.hu- ka riba,  Dh im ri-ka riba , YitKi-kanba , Nabti- 
kariba , Ma'di-karibap  Tubbai-kariba,  Nash'i-kariba , Dhar'i- 
kariba  = My  father  etc.  has  (or  is)  blest. 

Rabbi-nadiba  = My  Lord  is  generous. 

Abi-ali , Sumhu-ali,  Dhimri-ali,  Nabti-ali  = My  father  etc. 
is  sublime. 

Ammi-tsaduka  ~ My  uncle  is  just — with  strong  £-sound. 

Su7nhu-riya7nu  = His  name  is  sublimity. 

Abi-shapaka,  Amini-shapaka  = My  father  etc.  gives  rich  gifts 
— with  strong  £-sound. 

* Abi-sami'a,  A:mni-sa7nia  — My  father  etc.  hearkened. 

* This  is  one  of  the  most  common  names,  and  continued  to  be  in 
actual  use  up  to  late  times,  that  is,  to  the  time  of  Mahomed. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  85 

An  asterisk  is  prefixed  to  those  names  of  which  the 
second  element  has  already  appeared  in  the  earlier 
list  on  pp.  81—82,  in  conjunction  with  Hi  = my  God. 

By  far  the  greater  number  of  all  these  names,  in- 
cluding both  those  on  p.  81,  and  those  just  enumer- 
ated, belong  to  the  Minaean  and  early  Sabaean 
inscriptions.  Careful  calculations — some  results  of 
which  are  given  elsewhere — tend  to  show  that  many 
of  these  names,  and  especially  those  beginning  with 
A mini-,  Khali-,  and  Sumhu-  appear  less  and  less  fre- 
quently as  time  goes  on,  and  that  the  vogue  of  this 
whole  system  of  name-formation  practically  began 
and  ended  in  the  earliest  epochs  of  South  Arabian 
history. 

In  regard  to  the  religions  significance  of  this  name- 
system,  it  may,  I think,  be  confidently  asserted  that 
no  parallel  can  be  found  for  it  in  the  nomenclature 
of  any  ancient  people.  It  is  true,  that  in  so  far  as 
the  attributes  ascribed  to  the  Deity  are  concerned, 
genuine  Babylonian  names,  which  we  have  already 
considered  at  some  length,  offer  points  of  resem- 
blance with  those  of  South  Arabia.  In  the  Babylo- 
nian, no  less  than  in  the  South  Arabian,  we  find 
evidence  of  a belief  that  the  Deity  gives  men  all 
things  that  are  good,  that  He  blesses,  protects,  res- 
cues, assists,  and  delivers,  that  He  is  mighty,  and 
shines  with  a pure  radiance  ; that  He  creates  and 
preserves  all  things,  is  omniscient,  just,  sublime, 
and  kingly,  increases,  and  commands ; that  He  is 
nevertheless  gracious  and  merciful  to  all  who  ap- 
proach Him  as  suppliants,  even  as  a father  is  to  his 
children,  and  hearkens  to  the  prayers  of  them  that 


86 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


call  upon  Him  and  serve  Him  in  holy  fear.  If  we 
add  to  this  the  fact  that  in  Babylonian  names,  refer- 
ences to  “ judgment,”  “ raising  from  the  dead,”  and 
“ forgiveness  ” occur  with  comparative  frequency,  it 
would  almost  seem  as  though  the  Babylonians  had 
possessed  a deeper  sense  of  religion  than  the  Arabs. 
Apart,  however,  from  the  fact  that  with  few  excep- 
tions— as,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  expressions 
like  “ hearken,”  “ know,”  and  one  or  two  others — 
Babylonian  and  Arabic  rarely  employ  the  same  or 
even  etymologically  identical  verbs,  but  generally 
use  totally  distinct  words  even  when  they  wish  to 
express  the  same  or  a similar  meaning,  there  is  an- 
other radical  distinction  between  them,  which  places 
the  Arabic  nomenclature  on  a far  higher  and  purer 
level  than  the  Babylonian.  I refer  to  its  almost  in- 
variable use  of  the  word  “ God  ” (ilu)  as  contrasted 
with  the  polytheism  observable  in  Babylonian  names 
(Sin,  Samas,  Ramman,  Nirgal,  etc.).  Even  the  sy- 
nonymous alternatives  for  the  word  “ God  ” which 
are  found  in  South  Arabian  inscriptions,  such  as 
“ Father,”  “ Uncle,”  “ Protection,”  “ Help  ” (cf.  the 
analogous  use  of  Tsur  — “ rock  ” in  the  O.  T.),  and 
especially  the  substitute  “ His  name  ” which  occurs 
so  frequently,  are  merely  so  many  witnesses  to 
the  lofty  conception  of  the  Deity  entertained  by 
the  earliest  Arabs.  Compared  with  that  held  by 
the  Babylonians,  it  can  only  be  described  as  a 
very  advanced  type  of  monotheism  not  unworthy 
to  rank  with  the  religion  of  the  patriarch  Abra- 
ham as  presented  in  the  Biblical  narrative.  If  we 
look  at  the  part  played  by  the  sublime  and  holy 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  8/ 

“ name  of  Yahveh  ” in  the  Old  Testament  scriptures 
dealing  with  Mosaic  times,  we  find  that  a growing 
reluctance  to  pronounce  this  sacred  name  led  to  its 
being  replaced  by  the  designation  Skein  = “ Name 
(tear  it;oxvv)”  The  fact,  moreover,  that  the  worship 
of  a number  of  deities  is  prominently  mentioned, 
even  in  the  earliest  South  Arabian  inscriptions, 
merely  serves  to  throw  into  still  stronger  relief  the 
persistent  monotheism  of  the  personal  names,  which 
even  the  lapse  of  a thousand  years  or  so  had  been 
powerless  to  efface.  How  deeply  this  monotheistic 
principle  must  have  rooted  itself  in  the  hearts  of  this 
people  from  the  earliest  ages  is  proved  by  its  having 
been  able,  in  face  of  the  growing  encroachments  of 
polytheism,  to  retain  for  so  long  an  undisputed  posi- 
tion in  their  appellations. 

Having  now  sufficiently  described  the  system  of 
name-formation  peculiar  to  South  Arabia,  both  as 
regards  its  form  (viz.  the  verbs  and  nouns  which  are 
employed  in  it)  and  as  regards  its  meaning,  it  will 
be  a comparatively  easy  task  to  separate  the  Ara- 
bic names  referred  to  above  (pp.  59 — 62)  as  occur- 
ring under  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty,  and  especially 
the  names  of  the  kings  themselves  (see  list  p.  68) 
from  those  of  purely  Babylonian  origin.  And  first 
of  all  it  is  only  fair  to  credit  with  their  due  meed  of 
praise,  and  in  their  proper  order,  the  various  scholars 
who  have  directly  or  indirectly  helped  to  elucidate 
this  most  important  point,  and  to  show  how  modern 
investigators  were  gradually  led  to  determine  the 
Western  Semitic  (or,  to  be  more  precise,  Arabic), 
origin  of  the  Dynasty  in  question. 


88 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


As  far  back  as  December  1880,  the  English  Assyr- 
iologist,  Mr.  T.  G.  Pinches,  in  dealing  with  the  list 
of  eleven  kings  and  the  periods  for  which  they 
reigned,  then  first  published,  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  another  list  showed  a long  series  of  names 
of  Babylonian  rulers,  the  greater  part  of  them  of 
Sumerian  and  also  Kassite  origin  with  their  expla- 
nation in  Semitic.  Among  these  translations  into  the 
Semitic  dialect  of  Babylonia  were  found  also  the 
two  names  Kha-am-mn-ra-bi  (pronounced  Khaminu- 
rabi ) and  Am-mi-di-ka-ga  (for  which  read  Ammi-sa- 
dugga  or  Ammi-didugga , since  the  symbol  ka  when 
it  appears  in  conjunction  with  ga  is  equivalent  to 
dug) ; the  Babylonian  scribe  explains  them  by  Kim- 
ta-rapashtu  (i.e.  “ a widely  extended  family  ”)  and 
Kimtu-kittu  (“  just  family  ”).  According  to  the  view 
of  the  Babylonian  interpreter,  in  these  names  (which 
he  evidently  regards  as  foreign  or,  at  any  rate,  as 
not  of  genuine  Babylonian  origin)  the  first  element 
Khammu , or  Ammi  — Family,  the  second  element 
rabi  (ostensibly  good  Babylonian  for  “ great,”  from 
rabti  — to  be  great)  = “ widely  diffused  ” or  “ ex- 
tended,” while  the  other  second  element  sadugga  — 
“just.”  That  the  pronunciation  intended  was  really 
sadugga  and  not  didugga  is  proved  by  certain  ancient 
Babylonian  contract  tablets  of  Tel  Ibraham  (Kutha), 
the  dates  of  which  were  given  in  a translation  by 
Mr.  Pinches  in  1 886 ; 1 in  these  contracts  the  name  of 
the  king  in  question  is  spelt  Ammi-zaduga  by  his  con- 
temporaries. 

In  December  1887,  that  able  Assyriologist,  M.  H. 

1 Guide  to  the  Nimroud  Central  Saloon , (London  1886)  p.  82. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  89 


Pognon,  French  Consul  at  Bagdad,  carried  the  mat- 
ter a step  further.  In  a note  contributed  to  the 
Journal  Asiatique  (Series  VIII.,  vol.  xi.,  1888,  pp.  543 
—547) — which  seems  unfortunately  to  have  been 
buried  in  that  publication,  and  has,  in  any  case,  re- 
ceived no  further  attention  from  Assyriologists — he 
identified  zadnga  with  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  verb 
Tsadak  — “ to  be  just  ” : explained  Khammu  and  Am- 
mi  as  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew  'am  — “ people,” 
basing  this  latter  conclusion  on  the  Babylonian  par- 
aphrase kimtu  — family,  and  correctly  translated 
Samsu-iluna  as  “ Samas  is  our  god.”  From  these  data 
he  argued  that  the  dynasty  in  question  must  have 
been  of  “Arabic  or  Aramaic  origin.”  The  last  sen- 
tence of  his  paper  (in  which,  by  the  way,  he  does  not 
even  touch  on  the  most  important  point  of  all,  viz. 
the  existence  of  South  Arabian  and  Hebrew  names 
beginning  with  Amrni)  runs  as  follows  : “ I am,  how- 
ever, quite  prepared  to  admit  that  my  opinion  (sc. 
as  to  the  foreign,  but  incontestably  Semitic  origin 
of  the  dynasty)  is  purely  hypothetical,  and  I have 
no  intention  of  presenting  it  to  my  readers  as  a cer- 
tainty.” 

It  was  not  till  the  year  1890  that  this  hypothesis, 
which  Pognon  had  done  little  more  than  suggest,  at 
length  took  tangible  shape.  In  that  year  the  gifted 
English  Assyriologist,  A.  H.  Sayce,  pointed  out  that 
a name  almost  identical  with  Ammi-zaduga  occurs 
in  a well-known  South  Arabian  inscription  (Hal.  535) 
in  the  form  * Ammi-tsaduka , thus  furnishing  obvious 
confirmation  of  the  existence  of  the  Western  Semitic 
verb,  meaning  “to  be  just,”  postulated  by  Pognon’s 


9o 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


theory.  Meanwhile  Eduard  Glaser  had  (in  1889) 
drawn  fresh  attention  to  this  document,  hitherto  in- 
variably misinterpreted,  in  which  the  writer,  * A mini - 
tsaduka,  returns  thanks  to  the  gods  for  his  safe 
escape  out  of  Egypt,  Glaser  making  reference  to  it 
in  connexion  with  his  hypothesis  as  to  the  higher 
antiquity  of  the  Minaeans.1  This,  together  with  cer- 
tain contributions  towards  the  elucidation  of  this 
important  inscription  which  I gave  in  my  Anfsdtze 
und  Abhandlungen ,2  and  a further  discussion  of  the 
same  text  by  Glaser  in  the  second  volume  of  his 
book3  (which  appeared  in  May  1890)  led  Sayce  to 
suggest  the  Minasan  name  Ammi-tsaduk .4  This  iden- 
tification of  Ammi-zaduga,  the  name  of  a Babylonian 
king  with  the  South  Arabian  name  'Ammi-tsaduka 
(for  this  was,  of  course,  the  complete  pronuncia- 
tion)— an  identification  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
all  who  seek  to  elucidate  the  earliest  history  of  the 
Western  Semites — occurs  in  Sayce’s  Preface  to  the 
third  volume  of  the  New  Series  of  Records  of  the  Past 
edited  by  him,  and  dated  September  1890.  Sayce 
here  supports  his  case  by  a reference  to  the  Hebrew 
names  Ammiel,  Amminadab  (I  had  already  adduced 
these  in  Aufsdtzen  und  Abhandlungen , p.  6,  note  1), 

1 Skizye  der  Geschichte  Arabiens , Pt.  I.  (which  is  unfortunately  not 
yet  obtainable  through  the  booksellers),  Munich,  1889,  pp.  57  et  seq. 

2 Pt.  I.,  Munich,  1892  ; pp.  1 — 66  were,  however,  sent  to  various 
scholars  and  libraries  as  early  as  March  1890. 

3 Skizze  der  Geschichte  tind  Geographic  Arabiens , vol.  II.  ( Geographic ), 
Berlin,  1890. 

4 This  had  already  been  correctly  transcribed  by  me  in  my  Aufsalzen 
und  Abhandlungen , p.  26,  note  1,  though  on  p.  6 I gave  it  as  'Ammi- 
tsadik. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  9 1 

Balaam  and  Jeroboam,  to  the  Arabian  names  Am- 
mu-ladin  (under  Assurbanipal  in  the  seventh  century 
B.c.)and  to  the  name  borne  by  the  Shuhite  god  Emu 
(for'Ammu),  and  in  conclusion  expresses  his  convic- 
tion that  certain  kings  of  the  first  North  Babylonian 
dynasty,  not  all  of  them,  but  from  Khammurabi,  the 
sixth  member  of  the  dynasty,  onwards,  belonged  to 
“ tribes  of  Arabian  origin  from  the  western  and 
eastern  frontiers  of  Babylon.”  On  this  last  point  he 
is,  however,  mistaken,  since  Samsu-iluna,  the  son  of 
Khammurabi,  calls  Sumu-la-ilu  “ his  mighty  ances- 
tor, his  fifth  predecessor”  (cf.  the  third  (1887)  Part 
of  my  History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  pp.  353  and 
415);  Sayce  ought,  therefore,  to  have  described  the 
whole  dynasty  as  Arabian,  but  appears  to  have 
been  misled  by  the  seemingly  pure  Babylonian 
names  of  the  first  five  kings.  In  addition  he  drew 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  name  of  the  eighth  of 
these  kings  is  Ibishu  according  to  the  list,  and  Abu 
ezukh  in  the  contracts  (the  correct  and  more  ac- 
curate form  is,  however,  Abishufa),  and  that  it  con- 
tains the  element  Abi  = “father”;  he  also  regards 
as  a later  interpolation  the  assertion  in  the  list  to 
the  effect  that  Samu-la-ilu,  the  second  king,  who  was 
probably  brother  to  the  first,  was  the  progenitor  of 
the  whole  dynasty. 

But  now  a fresh  difficulty  arises  which  did  not 
occur  to  Professor  Sayce  when  he  claimed  an 
Arabian  origin  for  the  second  half  of  the  Khammu- 
rabi Dynasty.  Since  names  beginning  with  A mini 
are  found  among  the  Hebrews,  the  absence  of  such 
a name  as  A mmi-zadok  from  the  Old  Testament  may 


92 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


be  purely  accidental.  There  is,  moreover,  the  pos- 
sibility that  the  names  of  the  second  half  of  the 
Khammurabi  Dynasty  may  have  been  Canaanitish 
instead  of  Arabian.  In  that  case  Samsu-iluna  instead 
of  being  equivalent  to  “ Samsu  is  our  God  ” (Hebr. 
Shemesk-elenu,  or  in  Babylonian  script  S llamas  h-ilenu) 
would  have  to  be  explained  as  “ Samsu  is  God  ” 
(Shemesh-elon),  as  indeed  I myself  had  at  one  time 
proposed  to  do.1 

Meanwhile,  we  learn  from  texts  recently  discov- 
ered that  both  Khammurabi  and  his  great-grandson, 
Ammi-satana,  were  not  only  kings  of  Babylonia 
proper,  but  also  kings  of  the  land  of  Martu,  (which 
included  Palestine) ; 2 the  obvious  explanation  seemed, 
therefore,  in  my  opinion,  to  be  that  both  Khammu- 
rabi and  his  successors  must  have  assumed  Canaan- 
itish names  either  for  political  reasons  with  a view 
to  conciliating  their  Canaanite  subjects,  or  possibly 
because  they  had  married  Canaanite  wives  and  thus 
condescended  to  show  their  love  for  them.3  I was 
encouraged  in  this  view  by  the  following  remark  of 
H.  Winckler’s  (A/torient.  For  sc  hungen,  Leipzig,  1894, 
p.  183):  “The  name  Ammi-saduga  is  generally  ad- 
mitted to  be  merely  another  form  of  Ammi-tsaduk  ; 


1 Geschichte  Babyloniens  und  Assyriens,  p.  415,  note  1. 

2 Cf.  H.  Winckler,  Altorientalhche  Forschungen , Leipzig,  1894, 
pp.  144 — 146  and  198,  also  p.  45  of  the  present  volume. 

3 Cf.  my  Geschichte  des  alten  Morgenlandes  (p.  59)  which  was  written 
early  in  1894  and  published  in  the  spring  of  1895.  in  the  Sammlung 
Goeschen.  There  also  I characterized  Abishu'a  as  “ a Minseo-Canaanit- 
ish  name”  (Hebr.  Abish-h'a , Min.  Abiyathifa ; cf.  also  supra  pp.  57 
and  59,  and  also  infra  p.  94,  note  1). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


93 


according  to  Sayce  and  Hommel  ; 1 Khammurabi, 
Ammi-sadugga,  and  Ammi-satana  are  West-country 
names,  cf.  supra  p.  146  (Khammurabi,  King  of  the 
countries  of  the  West).”  Indeed,  in  1895,  Winckler 
went  still  further,  for  in  his  Geschichte  Israels  (pp. 
130  et  seq.)  he  declared  the  names  Sumu-abi  and 
Sumu-ilu  to  be  Canaanitish  (giving  as  a reason  their 
analogy  with  Shemu-el  and  with  a hypothetical 
Sam-'al-el)  and  that  hence  the  whole  Dynasty  must 
have  been  Western  Semitic  or  rather  Canaanitish 
conquerors  ; “as  a matter  of  fact,”  he  writes,  “ of  the 
whole  eleven  names  of  the  Dynasty,  eight  bear  the 
true  Canaanite  stamp,  two-Apil-Sin  and  Sin-muballit 
— are  Babylonian,  for  the  victors  could  not  entirely 
escape  the  influence  of  Babylonian  culture  — and 
one  (Zabu)  is  uncertain,  but  can  hardly  be  Babylo- 
nian.” But  even  should  this  theory  prove  to  be  really 
correct,  Sayce’s  identification  of  Ammi-zaduga  with 
Ammi-zadok  (or  Ammi-tzaduka),  on  which  the  whole 
superstructure  depends,  would  still  be  of  immense 
importance  to  the  student  of  ancient  oriental  history, 
and  more  especially  of  the  early  history  of  the  He- 
brews. For  Abraham’s  migration  from  Chaldasa 
would  thus  assume  a totally  different  complexion  if 
it  were  true  that  the  Dynasty  to  which  Amraphel,2 
(i.e.  Khammurabi),  belonged  were  of  the  same  na- 
tionality and  spoke  the  same  language  as  Abraham 

1 Here  Winckler  evidently  has  in  his  mind  a passage  in  my  Siidara- 
bischen  Chrestomatiey  p.  12,  “ The  names  Ammi-zaduga  and  Ammi- 
satana,  as  Sayce  has  already  pointed  out,  are  pure  Western  Semitic 
formations.” 

2 Gen.  xiv.  1. 


94 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


and  his  followers  ; in  other  words,  if  they  were  of 
Canaanite  origin.  This  result  would  be  inevitable 
if  we  were  to  accept  Winckler’s  tacit  assumption 
that  Hebrew  and  Canaanite,  in  the  time  of  Abraham, 
were  practically  convertible  terms — an  assumption, 
however,  which,  as  recent  investigations  convince 
me,  is  untenable. 

Towards  the  close  of  1895  appeared  two  further 
contributions  towards  the  solution  of  this  question, 
one  from  the  pen  of  Professor  Sayce  and  one  pub- 
lished by  myself.  In  the  latter,  I succeeded,  I be- 
lieve, in  proving  conclusively  by  a comprehensive 
review  of  the  whole  body  of  available  material,  (in- 
cluding not  merely  the  names  of  the  kings,  but  more 
particularly  the  other  personal  names  of  the  period) 
that  Sayce  was  perfectly  right  in  his  first  conten- 
tion as  to  the  Arabian  (not  Canaanitish)  origin  of 
Khammurabi’s  dynasty,  but  that  it  was  the  whole 
dynasty  that  was  Arabian,  and  not,  as  he  supposed, 
the  half  only.  But  before  I deal  with  this,  and  re- 
capitulate here  the  reasons  which  led  me  to  this  con- 
clusion, it  will  be  well  to  consider  the  preface  to 
Sayce’s  Patriarchal  Palestine,  a small  volume  which 
appeared  in  November  1895,  in  which  he  again  re- 
turns to  the  subject. 

Sayce  first  points  out  that  not  only  is  the  personal 
name  Ab-ramu  (more  properly  Abi-ramn)  to  be  found 
in  Babylonian  contract-tablets  of  the  Khammurabi 
epoch,1  but  that  Mr.  Pinches  has  also  discovered  the 

1 Cf.  my  Assyriological  Notes , § 5 {Proceedings  of  the  Bibl.  Archaeol. 
Soc.,  May  1894),  where  I drew  attention  to  the  first  evidence  of  this 
that  was  forthcoming,  viz. : the  mention  of  a certain  Sha-Martu,  son  of 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  95 

names  Yaqiib-ihi  (Jacob-el)  and  Yasup-ilu  (or  rather 
YasJmp-ilu  or  Yashub-ilu)  in  these  tablets,  and  “ other 
distinctively  Hebrew  names,  like  Abdiel.”  From 
this  he  proceeds  to  make  the  following  deductions 
to  which  I attach  so  much  importance  that  I quote 
the  passage  in  full : 

“ There  were  therefore  Hebrews — or  at  least  a 
Hebrew-speaking  population — living  in  Babylonia 
at  the  period  to  which  the  Old  Testament  assigns 
the  life-time  of  Abraham.  But  this  is  not  all.  As  I 
pointed  out  five  years  ago,  the  name  of  Khammu- 
rabi  himself,  like  those  of  the  rest  of  the  dynasty  of 
which  he  was  a member,  is  not  Babylonian  but 
South  Arabian.  The  words,  with  which  they  are 
compounded  and  the  divine  names  which  they  con- 
tain, do  not  belong  to  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
language,  and  there  is  a cuneiform  tablet  in  which 
they  are  given  with  their  Assyrian  translations.  The 
dynasty  must  have  had  close  relations  with  South 
Arabia.  This,  however,  is  not  the  most  interesting 
part  of  the  matter.  The  names  (Khammurabi,  Ammi- 
zaduga,  etc.)  are  not  South  Arabian  only,  they  are 
Hebrew  as  well.1  . . . When  Abraham  therefore 

was  born  in  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  a dynasty  was  rul- 
ing there  which  was  not  of  Babylonian  origin,  but 

Abi-ramu  in  a contract-tablet  of  the  time  of  King  Apil  Sin  (grandfather 
of  Khammurabi).  I there  went  on  to  say  that  this  was  not  surprising 
since  both  Khammurabi  and  the  third  king  in  succession  after  him, 
Ammi-satana,  style  themselves  “ Kings  of  the  countries  of  the  West.” 
Also  cf.  supra , p.  72,  note  1. 

1 Sayce  here  refers  to  Hebrew  names  such  as  Amminadab,  and  verbs 
like  tsadak  [ Zaduqa  or  Zadoq]  ~ to  be  just,  which  though  foreign  to 
Assyro-Babylonian,  are  common  enough  in  Hebrew  and  Arabic. 


96 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


belonged  to  a race  which  was  at  once  Hebrew  and 
South  Arabian.  The  contract  tablets  prove  that  a 
population  with  similar  characteristics  was  living 
under  them  in  the  country.  Could  there  be  a more 
remarkable  confirmation  of  the  statements  which  we 
find  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis  ? There  we  read 
that  * unto  Eber  were  born  two  sons  ; the  name  of 
the  one  was  Peleg,’  the  ancestor  of  the  Hebrews, 
while  the  name  of  the  other  was  Joktan,  the  ancestor 
of  the  tribes  of  South  Arabia.  The  parallelism  be- 
tween the  Biblical  account  and  the  latest  discovery 
of  archaeology  is  thus  complete,  and  makes  it  im- 
possible to  believe  that  the  Biblical  narrative  could 
have  been  compiled  in  Palestine  at  the  late  date  to 
which  our  modern  ‘ critics  ’ would  assign  it.  All 
recollection  of  the  facts  embodied  in  it  would  then 
have  long  passed  away.” 

This  modification  of  Sayce’s  former  view  is 
clearly  due  to  observations  made  by  Winckler  and 
myself,  but  Sayce  rightly  avoids  the  expression 
“ Canaanite,”  and  uses  the  term  “ Hebrew  ” in  its 
place. 

And  now  I come  to  the  real  object  of  this  whole 
chapter,  which  is  to  prove  the  Arabian  origin  of  the 
kings  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty  collectively. 
The  reader  is  now  sufficiently  familiar  with  the 
general  characteristics  of  genuine  Babylonian  no- 
menclature, and  has,  on  the  other  hand,  obtained 
such  an  insight  into  the  principles  of  South  Arabian 
name-formation  as  to  be  able  to  form  an  opinion  for 
himself,  even  without  a knowledge  of  Arabic  He- 
brew, or  the  cuneiform  texts  ; much  more  will  the 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


97 


majority  of  theologians,  or  at  any  rate  all  those  who 
understand  Hebrew — and  it  is  to  this  class  that  I spe- 
cially address  the  present  volume— -be  in  a position 
to  follow  my  arguments  unaided. 

In  November  1895,  and  therefore  simultaneously 
with  the  appearance  of  Sayce’s  Patriarchal  Palestine , 
and  also — a fact  to  which  I attach  importance — with 
the  publication  of  H.  Winckler’s  Geschichte  Israels ,* 
my  review  of  Meissner’s  Babylonian  Common  Law — 
comprising  a collection  of  over  a hundred  contract 
tablets  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty,  most  of  which 
had  never  been  previously  published — appeared  in  a 
German  periodical.2  Shortly  before  this  an  article 
of  mine,  entitled  “ Discoveries  and  Researches  in 
Arabia,”  was  published  in  the  Philadelphia  Sunday 
School  Times  of  October  12,  1895,  and  was  after- 
wards reprinted  in  Professor  Hilprechts’  Recent  Re- 
search in  Bible  Lands  (pp.  131 — 158).  This  article  (the 
MS.  of  which  is  dated  April  30,  1895)  also  dealt  with 
the  Arabian  origin  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty. 

In  the  following  pages  I will  give  a brief  general 
summary  of  these  two  articles,  adding  at  the  same 
time  a number  of  additional  facts  which  have  since 
come  to  hand. 

We  must  notice  in  the  first  place  that  the  names 
of  the  first  two  kings  of  the  Dynasty,  Shumu-abi  and 
Sumu-la-ilu  contain  an  element  which  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  South  Arabian  names,  viz.  sum-hu  — 

1 Winckler’s  book  did  not  appear  until  after  my  MS.  had  been  sent  to 
the  printer,  in  the  summer  of  1895. 

3 The  Zeitschr.  der  Deulschen  Morgenl.  Gesellsch.  vol.  xlix.,  pp.  522 — 
528,  (on  Meissner’s  Beitrage  zum  altbabylonischen  Privatrechte). 


98 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


his  name  ( i.e . God’s  name ; cf.  supra , p.  85) ; these 
two  appellations  mean  respectively  “Sum-hu  is  my 
Father,”  and  “ Is  not  Sum-hu  God?”  The  Baby- 
lonians also  occasionally  employed  in  personal 
names  the  word  sJiumu  (which  originally  meaning 
“a  name,”  came  afterwards  to  indicate  “a  son”), 
e.g.  Shum-irtsiti  = son  of  the  earth  ; (cf.  the  alterna- 
tive name  Mar-irtsiti  which  means  the  same  thing).1 
It  is  evident  from  the  meaning  attached  to  the  latter 
that  it  was  not  used  in  the  same  way  as  the  term 
Sumu  in  the  two  names  mentioned  above.  It  is 
much  more  probable  that  the  first  element  in  Sumu- 
la-ilu  2 is  simply  a divine  appellation — just  as  Sumu- 
abi  is  a parallel  of  Samas-abi,  Ilu-abi,  etc.  ( = Samas 
is  my  Father,  God  is  my  father,  etc.).  This  name 
cannot  therefore  mean  “ The  Son  is  my  father,”  but 
simply  and  solely  “ Sumu  is  my  father.”  Now  we 
nowhere  find  sumu-hu  (abbreviated  to  sumhu  and  con- 
tracted to  SumA,  cf.  Hebr.  Shemu-el,  Samuel),  still 
extant  as  a periphrasis  for  “ God,”  except  in  South 
Arabian  personal  names,  to  which,  therefore,  we 
must  look  in  the  first  instance  for  information.  The 
Hebrew  name  Shemu-el  (the  pure  Hebraic  form  of 
which  would  be  Shemo-el),  which  occurs  first  in 
Num.  xxxiv.  20  (the  Simeonite  “ Shemuel,  the  son 
of  'Ammi-hud)  and  then  in  1 Chron.  vii.  2 (the  name 


1 In  the  contract  tablets  the  expression  Marat-irtsiti  — Earth-daugh- 
ter (or  according  to  Meissner  = a daughter  of  one’s  own  blood)  is  used 
for  “adopted  daughter”  (Meissner,  Beitr.,  p.  154). 

2 Cf.  the  analogous  name  Pa-la-Samas  — Is  it  not  then  Samas? 
(where  the  particle pa-=.  “then,”  “thus,”  is  Arabic)  and  Eama- la-ilu 
= Is  not  Ea  God  ? 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


99 


of  a grandson  of  Issachar)  and  elsewhere  only  in 
Samuel  the  name  of  the  great  judge  and  prophet, 
and  in  Shemida  (a  son  of  Gilead  mentioned  in  Num. 
xxvi.  32)  also  contains  the  element  Sum-hu,  and  this 
appellation  also  can  only  be  explained  by  a refer- 
ence to  ancient  Arabic  ; the  name  Sum-hu-yada  a ap- 
pears, so  Glaser  informs  me,  in  the  Katabanian  In- 
scriptions, as  Sumida'a,  a contraction  very  similar 
to  the  Hebrew  Shemida,  while  a name  of  analogous 
formation  such  as  Sumu-hu-yapi'a  is  generally  given 
in  full  in  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions. 

In  regard  to  the  two  names  of  witnesses  Shumu- 
litsi  and  Shumu-libshi  (otherwise  Shumu-ma-libshi 
and  Shumi-libshi),1  it  cannot  be  denied  that  both 
lit  si  (=  may  he  come  out  or  proceed  !)  and  libshi(  = 
may  he  be  !)  are  perfectly  regular  Babylonian  forms, 
and  that  a possible  translation  of  these  two  person- 
al names  would  be  “May  a son  come  forth!”  and 
“ A son  may  it  be  ! ” Considering,  however,  that  a 
similar  name,  Shuma-lib-shi,  occurs  in  the  bilingual 
list  (mentioned  on  p.  89,  supra),  in  which  Khammu- 
rabi  and  Ammi-sadugga  are  explained,  and  is  there 
paraphrased  into  Sumerian  as  Mu-na-tilla  = His 
Name  lives,  I prefer  to  regard  the  names  in  question 
as  being  Babylonian  in  form  but  Arabian  in  mean- 
ing. We  come  upon  names  like  Ikun-ka-ilu  = God 
existed  for  thee  (stood  thee  in  good  stead?)  and  IbsJii- 
na-ilu  = God  came  into  existence  for  us  (shewed 
himself  as  existing  for  us),2  which  not  only  offer  a 

1 We  also  find  Shumiabia  and  Shumi  abu  in  the  Ancient  Babylonian 
contract  tablets  as  names  of  private  individuals. 

2 Meissner,  Beitrdge  zum  altbabylonischen  Privatrechte , No.  78 


IOO 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


close  analogy  with  the  name  Shuma-libsJii  (which  I 
take  to  mean  “ His  (viz.  God’s)  Name  comes  into  exist- 
ence ”),  but  also  furnish  a remarkable  parallel  to  the 
Hebrew  divine  appellation  Yahveh  the  Existing 
One).  I ought,  moreover  to  point  out  that  when 
we  find  expressions  like  “ may  his  name  be,  or 
exist,”  and  “ his  name  lives,”  as  variants  of  the  same 
Babylonian  name,  the  chances  are  that  they  are 
translations  of  a Western  Semitic  original  Sum-hu- 
yahvi ; for  the  only  distinction  between  yahvi  = “ he 
is  ” and  yahvi  = “ he  lives,”  is  that  the  latter  is  pro- 
nounced with  a somewhat  stronger  guttural  aspi- 
rate, a sound  which  in  the  Hebrew  script  is  repre- 
sented by  a kh  (Hebr.  yikhyeh  = “ he  lives”  as 
opposed  to  yihyeh  = “ he  is  ”)  though  it  is  really 
more  of  an  h than  a kh,  as  any  one  who  is  familiar 
with  colloquial  Arabic  will  readily  admit.  I may 
here  mention  that  Yahveh  1 does  not  mean  “ He  who 
strikes  down  ” (i.e.  the  God  of  battle  or  of  light- 
ning)— as  the  higher  critics  fondly  imagine — but  is 
an  Arabic  rather  than  a Hebrew  (Canaanitish)  form 
of  the  ancient  verb  hawaya  — Hebr.  hayah  = “ to 
be,  to  come  into  existence,”  and  belongs  to  the  very 
earliest  language  of  the  Hebrews,  as  spoken  in  the 
time  of  Abraham  and  Moses,  prior  to  the  epoch  of 
Canaanitish  influence.  In  the  later  Hebrew  idiom, 
which  was  employed  from  the  time  of  the  Judges 

(Khammurabi  Period).  The  variant  Ib-shi-na-iluy  side  by  side  with 
lb  shi-i  na-ilu  and  especially  the  analogy  of  Ikun-ka-ilu  prove  that 
Meissner’s  reading,  Ibshi-ina-ili  — he  was  with  or  near  God,  is  errone- 
ous. Note  the  Arabic  -na  = us  (genuine  Babylonian  -ni). 

1 Jehovah  is  a wrongly  formed  word  and  never  really  existed. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


IOI 


onwards,  the  name  Yahveh  came  to  be  pronounced 
more  like  Yihyeh,  and  is  actually  written  as  Ehyeh 
— I will  be,  cf.  Ex.  iii.  14.1  In  so  far  as  form  is  con- 
cerned Yahveh  stands  in  precisely  the  same  relation 
to  yihyeh,  as  Yamlech  (1  Chron.  iv.  34)  does  to  the 
ordinary  Hebrew  verb-form  yimloch , {vide  supra , p. 
60).  The  names  of  the  witnesses  in  the  Ancient 
Babylonian  contract  tablets  of  the  time  of  Abraham 
bear  witness,  therefore,  to  the  correctness  of  the 
traditional  Biblical  explanation  of  the  All -holy 
name  of  Yahveh. 

There  is  another  name,  compounded  with  sum-hu 
which  seems  to  afford  a clue  to  the  origin  of  the 
Babylonian  personal  name  Samsu-riami  (found  in  a 
contract  tablet  of  the  time  of  king  Zabium).  As  the 
Babylonians  generally  omit  the  h,  they  would  nat- 
urally write  the  Arabic  sumu-hu  ~ “ his  Name” 
either  sumu  or  shumu , as  in  the  name  discussed 
above,  or  perhaps  transliterate  it  sumsu  (properly — 
shumu-shu ),  which  in  genuine  Babylonian  means 
“ his  Name.”  In  this  latter  case,  the  probabilities 
are  that  they  would  have  intentionally  altered 
sumsu  ~ his  name  = God,  into  Samsu,  the  name  of 
the  Babylonian  sun-god,  which  closely  resembles 
Sumsu  in  sound,  and  would  at  the  same  time  be 
more  in  harmony  with  the  Babylonian  polytheistic 
system.  In  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions  we  find 
the  name  Sumhu-riyam,  riyam  (allied  to  rdmu  ~ 
“ high  ” in  Abi-ramu ) being  a word  peculiar  to  South 
Arabia  ; we  are  not  likely  to  be  far  wrong,  there- 

1 Cf.  Hosea  i.  9,  ehyeh  lachern  = “ I will  be  for  you,”  an  expression  in 
many  respects  analogous  to  the  Babylonian  names  mentioned  above. 


102 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


fore,  in  identifying  the  name  Samsu-riami  with 
Sumhu-riyam.  Nor  ought  we  to  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  in  the  Minaean  dialect,  sumu-su  — “ his 
name  ” was  used  in  place  of  sumu-liu,  a fact  which 
was  obviously  due  to  Babylonian  influence,  while 
only  in  personal  names  the  old  Western  Semitic 
sumu-hu  maintained  its  existence  with  few  except 
tions  (eg.  Sumu-su-amina  = “ His  Name  is  true”). 

If  this  explanation  of  Satnsu-riam  be  correct,  then 
there  is  every  reason  for  believing  that  a similar 
transformation  may  have  occurred  in  the  names 
Samsu-iluna  and  Samsu-satana,  especially  as  here 
the  final  element  in  each  case  is  Arabian.1 2  The 
original  form  of  these  two  names  would,  therefore, 
be  Sumu-hu-ilu-na  = “ His  Name  is  our  God  ” and 
Sumu-hu-Sata-na  ~ “His  Name  is  our  Mountain.” 

Taking  the  names  of  the  kings  in  their  order  ( vide 
supra , pp.  68  et  seq.)  we  pass  from  Sumu-la-ilu  to  Za- 
bum,  or  (as  it  is  entered  in  a whole  series  of  contract 
tablets)  Zabium.  This  name  means  “ a warrior,” 
and,  since  nearly  all  of  these  names  possess  a relig- 
ious significance,  it  is  probably  an  abbreviation  of 
Ilu-zabi  = “God  fights  (for  me).”3  This  name  is 
also  found  in  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions,  but 
does  not  appear  in  any  of  the  Assy ro-Baby Ionian 
records,  although  it  is  clear  that  there  was  also  a 
Babylonian  word  tsabu  — “ warrior  ” ; moreover, 
the  uncontracted  form  Zabium  (instead  of  tsab’u  or 

1 Cf.  what  is  said  in  regard  to  ilu-na  on  p.  6o,  supra , and  as  to  satana 
a few  pages  later  on. 

2 The  name  Damku  = “ gracious  ” otherwise  llu  damik  = “ God  is 

gracious  ” offers  a close  analogy. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  103 


tsabu)  points  rather  to  an  Arabian  origin,  just  as 
Nabiurn  — herald,  is  probably  a Western  Semitic 
loan-word  imported  into  Babylonian.  Indeed  the 
Semitic  root  which  lies  at  the  base  of  Zabium  must 
be  familiar  to  every  student  of  the  Bible  ; it  con- 
tains the  same  root  as  tsabaa  which  is  involved  in 
the  Biblical  attribute  of  God,  Yahveh  Tsebaoth  — 
“ Lord  of  Hosts.” 

Apil-Sin  and  Sin-muballit,  who  come  next  in  order 
in  the  list  of  kings,  are  the  only  members  of  the 
whole  dynasty  who  bear  genuine  Babylonian  names. 
This  circumstance  has  quite  recently  induced  an 
Assyriologist,  who  has  so  far  shown  himself  to  be  a 
mere  amateur  in  questions  of  historical  and  archaeo- 
logical research,  to  throw  ridicule  on  the  theory  of 
the  Arabian  origin  of  Khammurabi’s  Dynasty.  Be- 
cause, forsooth,  Khammurabi’s  father  “bore  the 
stately  Babylonian  name  of  Sin-muballit,  and  his 
grandfather  the  no  less  irreproachably  Baoylonian 
name,  Apil-Sin  ” and  because  other  persons  who 
possess  names  which  I have  claimed  as  Arabic  have 
either  sons  or  fathers  with  pure  Babylonian  names, 
it  follows,  so  we  are  told,  that  the  assumed  Arabian 
origin  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty,  supported  as  it  is 
by  so  much  indisputable  and  irrefragable  evidence, 
is  none  the  less  a baseless  and  untenable  conjecture. 
We  have,  however,  in  the  succeeding  Kassite  Period 
a case  which  presents  the  closest  analogy  with  that 
of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty.  There  we  find  that 
the  son  of  King  Ramman-shuma-utsur  bore  the 
Kassite  name,  Mili-Shipak,  while  his  son,  who  was 
every  bit  as  good  a Kassite  as  his  forefathers,  re- 


104  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

verts  to  the  pure  Babylonian  name  Marduk-apli- 
idinna.  And,  moreover,  among  the  names  of 
witnesses  occurring  in  contracts  of  the  Kassite 
period,  as  my  friend  Professor  Hilprecht  of  Phila- 
delphia informs  me,  there  are  numberless  instances 
in  which  a son  is  called  by  a Semitic  name  and  the 
father  by  a Kassite  name  and  vice  versa ; and  as  the 
Kassites — or,  in  the  present  instance,  the  Arabs — 
fell  more  and  more  under  the  influence  of  Babylo- 
nian culture,  so  much  the  oftener  do  we  come 
across  this  practice  of  adopting  Babylonian  per- 
sonal names.  We  need  not  therefore  allow  objec- 
tions of  this  nature,  which  are  founded  on  nothing 
but  crass  ignorance  of  the  Minaeo-Sabaean  language 
and  antiquities,  to  detain  us  further,  but  will  merely 
lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  both  of  the  appellations 
referred  to  above,  Apil-Sin  and  Sin-muballit,  involve 
the  name  of  a Babylonian  deity  who  had,  even  in 
the  earliest  ages,  been  honoured  as  far  as  South 
Arabia,  viz. : the  name  of  the  moon-god  Sin  ( vide 
supra , p.  79). 

As  we  have  already  discussed  the  elements  Kham- 
mu  and  ammi  (pp.  89  et  seq.)  not  much  more  remains 
to  be  said  about  the  next  name  on  the  list,  that  of 
Khammurabi.  One  point  only  is  worthy  of  note. 
In  a series  of  contracts  and  letters  of  very  early  date 
published  by  Mr.  Pinches1,  we  find  the  variants 

1 Cuneiform  texts  from  Babylonian  Tablets  in  the  British  Museum, 
Pt.  If.  (50  plates),  London,  1896.  I take  this  opportunity  of  mention- 
ing that  Pt.  I.  (also  with  50  plates)  merely  contains  lists  of  the  time  of 
the  later  kings  of  Ur  written  in  the  manner  described  above  on  pp.  67 
et  seq.  ; these  new  texts  amply  confirm  all  that  I have  said  in  regard  to 
the  personal  names  of  that  period  on  p.  67  (also  on  70,  Note  1). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  X05 


Ammu-rabi  and  Khammi-rabi.  This  serves  to  remind 
us  of  the  fact  that  in  a contract  of  the  time  of  King 
Zabiu  (Zabum)  the  Western  Semitic  name  f Abdel 
(Abdallah),  which  also  begins  with  the  guttural  let- 
ter ' Ay  in,  appears  in  one  place  as  Abd-ili , in  another 
as  Khabdi-ili.  The  original  form  of  the  king’s  name 
must  therefore  have  been  fAmmi-rabi.  The  variants 
Ammu-rabi,  Khammurabi  and  Khammum-rabi  are 
merely  the  result  of  attempts  to  give  a Babylonian 
aspect  to  the  name  of  a man  who  was,  as  far  as  his 
deeds  were  concerned,  the  most  truly  national  of 
all  the  Babylonian  kings.  Indeed  these  attempts 
went  a step  farther.  There  is  in  existence  a seal 
which  bears  the  name  E-ki-rapal-tu ,*  king  of  Gish- 
galla  (i.e.  Babylon) ; this  is  none  other  than  our  old 
friend  Khammurabi,  who  is  mentioned  in  the  bilin- 
gual list  as  Kimtu-rapaltu  and  in  the  Bible  (Gen. 
xiv.  1)  as  Amraphel  (LXX : Amarpal).  In  the  text 
moreover  edited  by  Mr.  Pinches,  which  is  a tri- 
umphal ode  celebrating  the  overthrow  of  Kudurla- 
gamar  by  Khammurabi,  the  former  is  referred  to  as 
Girra  ( = Nergal-)  la-gamil  (according  to  Pinches  a 
play  on  the  name  Kudur-lagamal)  and  the  latter — a 
fact  which  has  hitherto  passed  unnoticed-— as  En- 
nun-dagal-la  = E-nun  (or  Kummu ) rapaltu.  Both 
E-ki  and  E-nun  are  mythological  terms  which  indi- 
cate the  southern  region  of  the  zodiac,  in  which  the 
Babylonians  placed  the  constellations  of  Ea  (Fish- 
Goat,  etc.)  and  the  entrance  to  the  under-world. 
Now,  seeing  that  there  is  a Babylonian  word  Khum - 

1 Cf.  my  note  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Soc.  of  Bibl.  Arch.,  January 
1893,  p.  IIO. 


106  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

mu  (synonymous  with  lummu)  for  Aries  (the  sign  of 
the  God  Ea),  and  that  on  the  other  hand  we  find  kum- 
mu  (syn.  lummu),  a word  closely  resembling  kimtu  in 
sound,  used  to  indicate  that  Watery-region  in  the 
heavens  in  the  same  manner  as  kimmatu  is  used  for 
the  ideogram  for  Fish-Goat,  we  can  readily  under- 
stand how  it  was  the  Babylonians  came  to  paraphrase 
the,  to  them,  outlandish  name  Ammi-rabi  (Khammi- 
rabi  etc.)  in  this  manner.  Moreover,  the  element  -rabi 
which  is  found  in  a number  of  seemingly  genuine 
Babylonian  names  of  the  same  period,  such  as  Sa- 
mas-rabi,  Ramman-rabi,  Ilu-rabi,  must  have  sounded 
strange  in  Babylonian  ears,  for  they  replaced  it  by 
rapashtu  or  rapaltu  (feminine  of  rapshu  = broad) ; 
probably  the  name  Yarbi-ilu  (p.  60),  which  from  its 
formation  is  manifestly  Arabic,  is  closely  related  to 
this  word  rabi.  Among  the  South  Arabian  inscrip- 
tions we  find  a parallel  in  the  name  Ili-rabbi  (My 
God,  increase,  cf.  supra  p.  81),  which  might,  it  is 
true,  be  also  read  Ilu-rabbi  — “ God  is  my  Lord.” 

Although  I have  headed  this  chapter,  “ The  Arabs 
in  Babylonia  before  and  in  the  time  of  Abraham ,”  it  is 
manifest  that  here,  where  we  have  to  deal  with  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  the  Arabian  origin  of  the 
Khammurabi  Dynasty  as  a whole,  it  is  impossible 
to  disregard  the  names  of  Khammurabi’s  successors, 
and  we  must  consequently  include  the  generations 
immediately  subsequent  to  Abraham  within  the 
scope  of  our  inquiry.  In  addition,  I propose  to  dis- 
cuss (pp.  1 10  et  seq.)  one  or  two  other  personal  names 
that  occur  in  the  contract  tablets  of  this  dynasty, 
which,  in  the  light  of  the  knowledge  gained  in  the 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  10/ 


preceding  pages,  the  reader  will  readily  recognize 
as  Arabian. 

In  regard  to  the  name  of  the  next  king  on  the  list, 
Samsu-iluna,  enough  has  already  been  said.  Other 
names  containing  the  suffix  ~na  (=  our)  in  place  of 
-ni,  are  Ipik-ili-na  and  Iln-na  (in  contract-tablets  of 
the  time  of  Ammi-zaduga).  We  have  already  dealt 
with  all  the  more  important  facts  in  connection  with 
the  name  of  Abishu  a (pp.  53,  84,  and  93  et  seq.)  and 
of  his  grandson  Ammi-zaduga  (pp.  84  and  88  et  seq.) 1 
the  latter  being  further  noteworthy  from  the  fact 
that  it  furnished  Sayce  with  the  clue  to  his  theory 
in  regard  to  the  Arabian  origin  of  the  Khammurabi 
Dynasty — a theory  which  has  been  so  strikingly 
confirmed  by  the  results  of  further  investigations. 
There  now  only  remain  the  names  of  the  kings 
A mmi-satana  and  Samsu-satana  to  deal  with.  As 
there  is  no  verb  Satana  or  Sadana  to  be  found  in 
the  Western  Semitic  nomenclature,  the  most  likely 
hypothesis  as  to  its  origin  seems  to  involve  the  as- 
sumption that  the  last  syllable  -na  is  the  same  Arabic 
pronominal  suffix  which  we  had  already  found  in 
Samsu-iluna.  What  sort  of  noun,  we  may  ask,  is 
the  remaining  word  Sata  f In  the  inscriptions  of 
Khammurabi  we  come  for  the  first  time  on  a very 

1 When  we  find  in  the  list  of  kings  the  form  Ibishu  in  place  of  A-bi  i- 
sku-'u  a or  A-bi-i  sAu-'a  (cf.  the  name  of  a private  individual  A-bi  ia- 
shu-kka  in  Meissner  No.  97),  it  is  evidently  with  the  aim  of  giving  the 
name  a Babylonian  form.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  even  in  Abis- 
hfia’s  time  the  name  was  pronounced  Ebishu  (which  may  easily  have 
changed  into  Ibishu) ; cf.  Hebrew  Ebiasaph  (or  Abiasaph)  and  Ebyatar, 
as  well  as  the  variants  Emi-zaduga  for  Ammi-zaduga  and  the  divine 
name  Emu  cited  on  p.  91. 


io8 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


peculiar-looking  word  for  “ mountain,”  viz.  satu, 
which  is  treated  as  a Sumerian  ideogram,  and  for 
this  reason  its  genitive  is  written  SA-TU-im  instead 
of  sa-ti-im ; in  a bilingual  text,  apparently  of  the 
same  period,  this  word  appears  as  sati  and  finally, 
under  Nebuchadnezzar,  when  the  tendency  was  to 
imitate  the  language  of  Khammurabi’s  time,  the 
word  appears  in  an  indeclinable  form,  sa-tu-um  (pro- 
nounced satu).  From  all  this  it  follows  that  the 
word  was  really  Semitic  but  not  Babylonian  in 
form : had  it  been  Babylonian  it  would  have  been 
written  shadA.  Now  in  Arabic  saddu  or  suddu  means 
“ barrier,”  “ dam,”  “ mountain,”  nearly  related  to 
which  are  the  words  tsaddu  and  tsuddu  = mountain. 
It  is,  therefore,  clear  that  the  Babylonians  en- 
deavoured to  reproduce  the  Arabic  double  d (or  ac- 
centuation of  the  syllable)  by  means  of  their  t. 

But  this  Arabic  word  for  “ mountain  ” must  have 
had  a religious  significance  as  well.  This  is  manifest 
from  its  employment  in  the  name  Ammi-satana  — 
“ my  uncle  (i.e.  as  we  have  already  learned,  “ God  ”) 
is  our  mountain.”  And  here  Babylonian  comes  in  to 
enlighten  us.  Just  as  the  Babylonians  called  the 
goddess  of  the  air  or  clouds  “ the  Mistress  of  the 
Mountain,”  so,  too,  their  distinctive  name  for  Bel 
was  “ the  great  mountain”  ( ShadA  rabA),  a term  proba- 
bly due  to  Western  Semitic  influences.  Among  the 
Assyrian  personal  names  of  the  eighth  century  B.c. 
we  find  Marduk-shadua  = “ Marduk  (i.e.  Bel-Mero- 
dach)  is  my  mountain,”  and  Bel-shadua,  and  in  the 
next  century  Bel-Harran-shadua  = “ the  Lord  of 
Harran  (i.e.  Sin)  is  my  mountain,”  with  which  may 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  109 

be  coupled  the  names  Sin-shaduni  = “ Sin  is  our 
mountain  ” and  Shadunu  or  Shaduni  = “our  moun- 
tain (sc.  is  God)  ” obtained  from  other  texts  (cf.  De- 
LITZSCH,  Prolegomena , pp.  205  and  208).  For  this 
reason  the  word  shadii  in  Assy  ro-Baby  Ionian  has 
come  now  and  then  to  mean  “Lord”  or  “com- 
mander.” It  is,  therefore,  something  more  than  a 
mere  coincidence  that  in  Ancient  Hebrew,  and  that 
too  as  early  as  the  time  of  Moses,  if  we  may  accept 
the  testimony  of  tradition,  a name  'A mmi-Shaddai 
occurs,  which  not  only  contains  the  subsequently 
obsolete  divine  name  Shaddai,  but  also  exhibits 
almost  exactly  the  same  elements  as  Ammi-sata-na. 
Now  it  matters  not  whether  we  adopt  the  later  or 
earlier  system  of  vocalization  of  the  Hebrew  word 
Shaddai  (LXX.  2!dhScu)-~~ it  is,  for  instance,  quite 
within  the  range  of  possibility  that  the  original 
reading  was  El  Shaddi  = “ God  my  Mountain  ” — 
the  fact  remains  that  this  divine  name  by  which 
Yahveh  revealed  himself  to  Abraham  and  Jacob 
(Gen.  xvii.  1 and  xxxv.  xx)  must,  as  has  been  abun- 
dantly proved  by  the  facts  stated  above,  be  of  the 
very  highest  antiquity.1  At  the  time  at  which 
Abraham  migrated  from  Ur,  both  the  Arabic  saddu 
(spelt  satu  by  the  Babylonians)  and  the  Babylonian 
rendering  shadii  possessed  the  same  religious  mean- 

1 Moreover,  the  fact  that  in  Babylonian  the  word  is  written  Ammi- 
sata- na  (and  not  Ammi-Jff/«-na),  probably  points  to  the  existence  of  a 
previous  form  Ammi-saddai-na.  Such  a word  as  Saddai  = “He  who 
dwells  on  the  mountain,”  when  followed  by  a pronominal  suffix,  may  quite 
possibly  have  been  abbreviated  to  Sadda  (Babylonian  transcription  satci). 
In  this  case  the  O.  T.  vocalization  Shaddai  would  possess  an  antiquity 
no  less  high  than  that  of  the  root  letters  Sh-d-y. 


I IO 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


ing  in  Babylonian,  viz.  mountain  = God  ; the  Hebrew 
root  Sh-d-y  in  LI  Shaddai  (as  it  was  pronounced  in 
post-exilic  times)  is  identical  with  one  or  other  of 
these. 

In  regard  to  the  name  of  the  last  of  the  kings, 
Samsu-satana,  this  must  (as  indicated  above  on  p. 
102),  have  originally  been  Sumu-hu-sata-na  = “ his 
name  is  our  mountain,”  and  it  was  only  later  that  it 
was  transformed  into  the  Babylonian  Samsu-satana 
= “ the  sun-god  is  our  mountain.” 

This  completes  the  chain  of  evidence  which  goes 
to  prove  that  every  one  of  the  eleven  kings  of  the 
Khammurabi  Dynasty  was  from  first  to  last  of 
Arabian  origin,  and,  as  might  have  been  expected — - 
and  it  is  a fact  which  affords  ample  confirmation  of 
the  above  theory — a large  number  of  names  of  pri- 
vate individuals  are  mentioned  in  the  contract  tab- 
lets of  this  epoch,  of  which  many  bear  the  unmis- 
takable impress  of  an  Arabian  origin.  We  have 
already  cited  (p.  60)  several  names  beginning  with 
the  Arabic  sign  of  the  imperfect  (ya  . . .)  c.g.  Ya’qub- 
ilu  (cf.  also  p.  95  and  the  South  Arabian  'Akibu  on 
p.  83),  Yarbi-ilu  (cf.  p.  106)  Yamlik-ilu,  and  on  pp. 
75  and  95  Yashup-ilu,  with  which  latter  name  we 
may  compare  the  South  Arabian  Yashupu  on  p.  83. 1 

1 Were  it  possible,  however,  to  read  Yashub-ilu,  we  should  have  a par- 
allel to  our  hand  in  the  Hebrew  Yashfib  (Num.  xxvi.  24).  The  abbre- 
viated form  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  complete  one  as  the  He- 
brew Ya'kob  [Jacob]  to  the  name  Ya'kub-  ilu  mentioned  above.  The 
reading  Yashup-ilu  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  in  the  fifteenth  century 
B.C.  in  the  lists  of  Thfitmosis  III.,  two  places  named  Ya'kob-el  and 
Yashap-el  are  mentioned  with  a number  of  other  towns  and  villages  of 
northern  Palestine,  though  it  is,  of  course,  quite  possible  that  here,  as 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


1 1 1 


To  these  may  be  added  Yakbar-ilu  = “ God  is  great” 
(Meissner,  No.  77 ; cf.  Kubburu , Meissner,  No.  74 
and  Akbar,  Strassmaier,  No.  57),  Ydzar-ilu  (Peek, 
No.  13),  Yarkhamu  (Strassmaier)  and  Yakhziru  (cf. 
Samas-khazir,  Nabium-Khazir  and  Marduk-khazir, 
Meissner,  No.  101),  which  last  name  undoubtedly 
finds  a parallel  in  the  Arabic  'Adhara-ilu  on  p.  82 
(Hebr.  Eli-'ezer,  El-'azar,  etc.).  To  the  names  ter- 
minating with  the  Arabic  suffix  -na  = “ us,”  which 
are  also  mentioned  above  on  p.  60  (Samsu-iluna, 
Samsu-satana)  are  to  be  added  names  of  private  in- 
dividuals, such  as  Ipik-ili-na,  Ilu-na  (p.  107).  Other 
pure  Arabic  forms  are  the  names  Makhntibi-ilu 
(Meissner,  No.  36)  and  Makhndzu  {Ibid.,  No.  92), 
Abatia  (cf.  Arab,  ya-abati  = “ O,  my  Father”  ; ibid., 
No.  97),  Pa-la-Samas  (properly  Pa-ld-sumhu ; supra, 
p.  98),  and  Samas-riami  (Sumuhu-riami ; supra , p. 
102),  Zimri-rabi  {supra,  pp.  75  and  83,  note  2 ; Scheil, 
Recueil,  xvi.,  p.  189,  where  the  erroneous  reading 
Zimri-ram  is  given),  and  Abdili  (. supra , p.  105). 
Among  names  containing  but  a single  element  Na- 
tunum , Mudadi  (cf.  the  South  Arabian  race  El-mo- 
dad,  Gen.  x.  26,  LXX)  and  Yadikhum  (for  Yadium, 
an  abbreviated  form  of  Ili-yadaa)  have  been  in- 
stanced on  p.  75  supra ; other  examples  are  Mazan- 
um,  Gadanum , Azanum,  Gamunu  (cf.  Arab.  Gumana- 
tu),  Zakunum  and  many  names  of  similar  form. 

A very  interesting  name  found  in  a document  of 

occasionally  elsewhere,  the  Egyptians  have  replaced  the  foreign  b by  a p 
{e.g.  hurp , loan-word  from  Canaanite  khereb  — sword).  In  any  case 
the  Hebrew  name  Joseph  (Ps.  lxxxi.  6,  Yehoseph,  cf.  Egyptian  Osir-sip) 
has  no  connection  here. 


1 1 2 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


the  time  of  Sinmuballit,  and  to  which  I wish  to  draw 
special  attention  before  concluding  this  chapter,  is 
A'f-kalabu,  W.  A.  I.,1  750  (Peiser,  K-B.,2 * * *  IV.  p.  14).  In 
so  far  as  its  first  element  is  concerned  this  name  is 
apparently  pure  Babylonian,  the  “ Ai'  ” being  written 
in  precisely  the  same  manner  as  the  name  of  the 
Babylonian  goddess  of  the  sky  mentioned  on  pp.  65 
and  66.  But  Mr.  Pinches  has  drawn  attention  to  the 
fact  that  we  also  find  in  various  Assyrian  names,  a 
male  deity,  Ai  or  Ya  [Ja]  (the  latter  reading  being  a 
perfectly  possible  one) ; now,  this  deity  is  in  no  way 
identical  with  the  Babylonian  god  Ea,  whose  name 
is  written  with  different  signs.  There  can  be  no 
doubt,  therefore,  that  in  the  name  A'f-kalabu  or  Ya- 
kalabu,  the  first  element  represents  a male  god,  who 
is  not  of  Assyro-Babylonian,  but  of  Arabian  origin. 
A 'i-rammu , the  name  of  an  Edomite  king  in  the  time 
of  Sennacherib  (Taylor  Cylinder,  2,  54) — an  appella- 
tion, as  Mr.  Pinches  rightly  assumes,  to  be  inter- 
preted only  as  equivalent  to  Joramz — and  more 
especially  the  Arabian  name  Ai-kamaru  borne  by  a 
Massean  in  the  time  of  Assurbanipal  (700  B.c.),  help 
us  to  this  conclusion.  It  need  not  surprise  us  to 
find  a name  like  Ai-rammu  or  Ya-rammu  among  a 
people  so  nearly  related  to  the  Hebrews  as  the 
Edomites  were.  O11  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  sin- 
gular that  A'f-kalabu  or  Ya-kalabu  should  occur  as 

1 West.  Asiat.  Ins.  8 Keilinschr.  Bibliothek. 

3 The  reading  “ Malik-rammu  ” proposed  by  Schrader  is  incorrect. 

There  is  no  more  ground  for  transcribing  the  divine  name  Ai  by  Malik, 

than  for  the  transcription  Nin-ib  or  Nin-dar  by  Adar.  Both  of  these 

readings  must  now  be  finally  abandoned. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 1 3 

the  name  of  an  Arabian  subject  of  the  Babylonian 
king  Sin-muballit,  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  i.e.  at 
least  one  thousand  years  before  the  time  of  Senna- 
cherib and  Assurbanipal.  For  this  name  has  the  same 
meaning  as  Ai-kamaru,  viz : “Ya  is  Priest.”  Evi- 
dently in  these  early  times  the  words  kalabu  and 
kamaru  had  not  yet  acquired  the  disreputable  sense 
afterwards  associated  with  them.  In  the  Old  Testa- 
ment the  maidens  consecrated  to  the  service  of  the 
heathen  temples  are  called  “ Kedeshah  ” (Babyl.  ka- 
dishtu  ; A.  V.,  harlot),  the  men  who  occupied  analo- 
gous positions  “ Kadesh  ” (literally  “ sanctified  ”) ; 
in  Deut.  xxiii.  17,  the  Israelites  of  both  sexes  are  for- 
bidden to  devote  themselves  to  such  offices,  a pas- 
sage paralleled  in  the  next  verse : “ Thou  shalt  not 
bring  the  hire  (et Jinan)  of  a whore  or  the  wages 
(properly  purchase-price,  mekhtr)  of  a keleb  (or  “ dog,” 
Babyl.  and  Arab,  kalbii)  into  the  house  of  the  Lord 
Thy  God  for  any  vow.”  The  other  word,  komer,  is 
never  used  in  the  Old  Testament  except  of  idol- 
atrous priests.  But  in  a Phoenician  inscription  in 
Cyprus  it  seems  to  cover  the  builders,  the  sacrificers, 
the  servants  of  the  temple,  the  barbers  {i.e.  sur- 
geons), the  proselytes,  the  door-keepers,  and  lastly 
the  priestesses  and  kelabim.  This  last  word,  the 
singular  of  which  was  originally  kalibu  or  kalabu, 
cannot,  of  course,  be  identical  with  kalbu  (dog),  for 
though  the  Israelites  may  later  on  have  applied  the 
term  dog  to  the  slaves  of  heathen  temples,  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  the  Phoenicians  should  have  thus 
designated  their  own  Hierodules.  Kalibu  is  rather 
allied  to  the  verb  kariba  (cf.  South  Arabian  makrlibu 


1 14  the  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

= “ Priest-king  ” ; and  mikrdbu  — “ Temple  ”).  More- 
over, the  fact  that  Keleb-elim  occurs  as  a Phoenician 
personal  name  is  opposed  to  any  original  identity 
with  kalbu,  “dog.”  The  most  important  point,  how- 
ever, is  that  the  name  of  a Western  Semitic  god  Ai 
or  Ya  is  found  in  two  Arabian  names — Ai-  (or  Ya-) 
kalabu  (in  the  time  of  Abraham)  and  Ai-  (or  Ya-) 
kamaru.  Now  seeing  that  the  Hebrew  word  Yah- 
veh appears  in  personal  names  only  as  Yd,  Yah , or 
Yahu,x  and  that  Moses  expressly  states  that  Yahveh 
was  a new  name  (Exod.  vi.  3),  (the  ancient  Hebrew 
name  for  God  being  El  Shaddai),  we  are  evidently 
warranted  in  making  the  following  deductions : 
firstly,  that  Yahu  or  Yah  was  the  earlier  form,  and 
not  a later  abbreviation  from  Yahveh  ; and  secondly, 
that  there  were  then  thrown  into  a concrete  shape 
ideas  that  had  been  current  from  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham onwards,  and  a new  significance  imparted  to 
this  ancient  name,  by  compounding  it  with  the 
Ancient  Hebrew  verb  liazvaya  — “ to  exist  ” (im- 
perfect, or  rather  present,  yahvi ),  thus  transforming 
it  into  Yahveh  = “ He  exists,  comes  into  existence, 
reveals  Himself.” 

As  to  the  original  etymology  of  the  primitive 
Western  Semitic  name  for  God,  Ya  or  Ai,  this  is  a 
point  which  is  never  likely  to  be  cleared  up.1 2  One 
thing,  however,  is  worthy  of  note,  and  that  is,  that 

1 E.g.  in  the  names  Joseph  {vide  supra,  p.  no,  note  i)  and  Jochebed 
(the  mother  of  Moses). 

2 Its  resemblance  to  Ai,  the  name  of  the  Babylonian  Queen  of 
Heaven  (from  the  Sumerian  anna , softened  into  anya , anyi,di^s. 
“ Heaven  ”)  ii  perhaps  merely  accidental. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  TIIE  MONUMENTS  1 1 5 

both  in  Hebrew  and  Phoenician  personal  names  we 
find  a variant,  1,  (written  with  a long  i,  indicated  by 
the  letters  Aleph  and  Jod,and  probably  pronounced 
originally  “ Ai  ”).  A parallel  to  the  well-known 
Phoenician  woman’s  name  I-zebel  (Isabella)  has  re- 
cently been  discovered  in  Shemzebel  ( Academy , Jan. 
25,  1896),  which  shows  that  the  first  element  of  I-ze- 
bel is  a divine  name  1 ; from  this  it  follows  that  the 
Hebrew  I-chabod  (1  Sam  iv.  21)  must  be  from  the 
same  source  as  Jochebed,  and  that  in  the  names 
I-tamar  (Ex.  vi.  23,  R.  V.  Ithamar)  and  I'ezer  (Num. 
xx vi.  30),  and  probably  also  in  I-shai  or  Yi-shai  (cf. 
Abi-shai),  we  are  also  confronted  by  this  ancient  col- 
lateral form  of  Yah,  the  true  meaning  of  which  had 
ceased  to  be  intelligible  to  later  generations. 

Passing  mention  should  be  made  of  two  other 
deities,  Khusha  and  Ilali  (written  E-la-li),  who  are 
also  possibly  of  Arabian  origin.  The  latter,  at  any 
rate  (in  the  personal  names  Elali,  Arad-Elali  and 
Elali-bani),  at  once  reminds  us  of  the  Arabic  hildl  = 
“ new  moon  ” ; the  Hebrew  Helal , “ Son  of  the 
morning  ” (Is.  xiv.  12),  is  also  probably  connected 
with  it.  It  is  possible  that  this  word  “ Ilali  ” is 
merely  the  result  of  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
Arabs  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty  to  translate  the 
name  of  a Babylonian  god  (Sin  or  Uru-ki).  As  to 
Khusha  (Meissner,  No.  43),  it  is  quite  possible  that 

1 The  Phoenician  Astarte  possessed  a sobiiquet  (Shem  Ba'al  name  of 
Baal),  just  as  the  Carthaginian  Tanit  bore  the  sobriquet  Pene  Ba'al 
(countenance  of  Baal).  Probably,  however,  the  Shem  in  Shem  zebel 
stands  for  I or  AY  ( = YahveV),  just  as,  later  on,  the  Jews  were  in  the 
habit  of  using  Shem  ( = name)  for  Yahveh. 


II 6 THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

this  ma)^  be  an  incorrect  rendering  of  the  name  of 
the  Arabian  goddess  'Uzza  ; for  as  in  these  contract 
tablets  we  find  the  Babylonian  verb  bashii  — “ to 
be,”  sometimes  written  “ bazii ,”  so  on  the  other  hand 
Khusha  may  be  an  erroneous  transcription  of  'Uzza. 
In  that  case  'Uzza  (properly  “the  mighty”)  would 
be  an  Arabian  translation  of  the  Babylonian  name 
Ningal  (=  great  mistress),  the  wife  of  the  moon- 
god  ; the  passage  runs  as  follows : “ in  the  gate  of 
Marduk,  of  Shussha  (lit.  “her  name,”  meaning  Ish- 
tar  or  Zarpanit,  wife  of  Marduk),  of  Uruki,  of  Khu- 
sha and  of  Nin-Mar  (mistress  of  Mar),  the  daughter 
of  Marduk  (did  they  pronounce  judgment).”  These 
are  the  only  Arabic  names  of  deities  that  occur. 
We  are  therefore  fully  warranted  in  assuming  that 
what  has  been  said  of  South  Arabian  names  applies 
with  equal  force  to  the  Arabian  personal  names  of 
the  Khammurabi  epoch  : these  names  indicate  that 
their  owners  possessed  a far  purer  religion  than  that 
of  the  Babylonians,  a religion,  in  short,  of  an  essen- 
tially monotheistic  character. 

It  was  from  out  of  such  surroundings  as  these  that 
Abraham,  the  friend  of  God,  had  gone  forth.  By 
his  migration  from  Chaldaea  Abraham’s  higher  and 
purer  creed  was  preserved  from  absorption  into  the 
Babylonian  polytheism,  a fate  which  must  otherwise 
have  inevitably  befallen  it.  For  from  that  time  on- 
ward we  find  Babylonian  manners  and  Babylonian 
idol-worship  steadily  penetrating  into  the  Arabian 
religion  as  they  had  previously  done  into  that  of  the 
Canaanites.  This  is  proved  by  the  presence  of  the 
names  At h tar  (Astar)  and  Sin,  Anbay  (Nebo)  and 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 1/ 


Almaku-hu 1 among  the  South  Arabians,  by  the 
Babylonianisms  found  in  the  grammatical  forms  of 
the  Minaean  dialect  (e.g.  the  suffix  -sd  instead  of  -hd, 
the  causative  form  sakbala  instead  of  hakbala),  by 
Babylonian  loan-words,  such  as  satara  = “ to  write  ” 
(instead  of  kataba),  and  by  many  other  indications 
of  a like  nature.  It  can  be  readily  imagined  that 
this  influence  must  have  operated  with  still  greater 
force  on  those  Arabs  who  lived  in  Babylonia  itself. 
Even  the  Arab  kings  of  Babylonia,  from  Sumu-abi 
onwards  became  almost  entirely  Babylonian  — at 
first,  no  doubt,  from  policy,  but  ere  long  from  habit 
as  well,  and  finally  from  innate  conviction. 


1 Lamga  is  a Babylonian  sobriquet  of  Sin  ; from  this  the  Sabseans, 
deceived  by  its  apparent  identity  with  their  verb  lainaka  ( = glitter  ?) 
constructed  a plural  Almaku. 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


1 1 8 


CHAPTER  IV 

CHRONOLOGY  OF  THE  TIME  OF  ABRAHAM 

There  are  three  circumstances  which  make  the 
Arabian  personal  names  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty 
of  incalculable  importance  to  the  student  of  relig- 
ious history.  First,  the  fact  that  Biblical  tradition 
connects  the  history  of  the  patriarch  Abraham  with 
Khammurabi  (Gen.  xiv.);  a point  which  will  be  fully 
dealt  with  later  on  in  a chapter  by  itself.  Second, 
the  proof,  from  an  examination  of  Hebrew  personal 
names — especially  those  of  the  time  of  Moses  and 
the  Judges,1 — that  even  the  very  earliest  Hebrew 
nomenclature  is  absolutely  similar  to  that  of  the 
Arabs  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty  and  to  that  of 
the  South  Arabian  inscriptions — nay,  more,  that  the 
Hebrews,  before  they  took  possession  of  the  terri- 
tory west  of  the  Jordan  under  Joshua  (i.e.  the  He- 
brews of  the  patriarchal  period),  were  still  half 

1 Attention  has  already  been  drawn  in  the  preceding  chapters  to  many 
of  these  points  of  similarity.  The  period  between  Moses  and  David  nat- 
urally yields  the  largest  amount  of  material ; but  allowing  for  their  rel- 
atively much  smaller  number  the  names  of  the  patriarchal  period  lead 
to  the  same  results,  as  is  sufficiently  proved  by  such  names  as  Abram 
{vide  supra,  p.  94,  note  1),  Eli'ezer,  Ishmael,  Ya’kob  (from  Ya’kob-el, 
vide  supra,  p.  no),  and  Abidab 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 19 

Arabs,  and  that  it  was  not  until  they  had  perma- 
nently settled  down  in  the  Promised  Land  that  they 
adopted  the  Canaanitish  tongue  in  place  of  their 
original  language.  Third,  and  last  of  all,  the  fact 
that  we  have  arrived  at  results  in  the  preceding 
chapters  which  place  us  in  a position  of  advantage  in 
regard  to  our  adversaries,  a position  from  which  no 
future  attack  of  sceptical  criticism  can  hope  to  dis- 
lodge us.  We  have  been  able,  for  instance,  to  prove 
that  the  system  of  name- formation  which  w~e  find 
in  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions  was  already  in 
existence  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  millennium 
before  Christ,  and  that  the  numerous  personal  names 
ascribed  to  patriarchal  and  Mosaic  times  were  in 
general  use  at  this  very  period,  and  could  not  have 
been  invented  in  or  after  the  time  of  the  kings— 
when  a totally  different  system  of  nomenclature  ob- 
tained— -and  thrown  back  into  antiquity  retrospec- 
tively. 

It  now  only  remains  to  discover  the  date  to  which 
in  the  balance  of  probability  we  ought  to  assign 
King  Khammurabi,  and  to  account  also  for  the  fact 
that  while  some  Assyriologists  are  inclined  to  place 
him  in  the  nineteenth  or  eighteenth  century,  B.C., 
others  prefer  to  go  back  as  far  as  the  twenty-third 
or  twenty-second  century,  B.c.  For  when  the  gen- 
eral reader  finds  that  the  following  dates  are  as- 
signed for  the  fifty -five  years  of  Khammurabi’s 
reign,  it  is  only  natural  that,  in  the  absence  of  any 
further  explanation,  grave  doubts  should  arise  as  to 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  Ancient  Babylonian  chro- 
nology ; 


120 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


according  to  Oppert 


from  2394  to  2339  B.c. 


2314  “ 
2304  “ 
2292  “ 
2287  “ 
2277  “ 
2139  “ 

2081  “ 
1947  “ 
1923  “ 


2258 

2249 

2237 

2232 

2222 

2084 


“ YVinckler  (1894) 

“ Maspero  (1896) 

“ Winckler  (1889) 

“ Delitzsch  (1891) 

“ Hilprecht  (1893) 

“ Peiser(i89i) 

“ Carl  Niebuhr 

(1896)  “ 2081  “ 2026  “ 

“ Hommel  (1895)  “ 1947  “ 1892  “ 

and  “ “ (1886)  “ 1923  “ 1868  “ 2 

Once,  however,  that  the  general  reader  has  learned 
the  true  state  of  affairs,  he  will  fully  comprehend 
why  up  to  the  present  it  has  been  impossible  to  ar- 
rive at  any  sort  of  unanimity  in  regard  to  the  date  of 
the  Khammurabi  Dynasty.  In  the  following  pages 
I will  endeavour  to  show  as  briefly  as  possible  how 
the  matter  really  stands. 

Since  the  year  1880  scholars  have  been  in  posses- 
sion of  a small  tablet  which  bears  on  its  obverse 
a list  of  the  eleven  kings  of  the  Khammurabi  dy- 
nasty, together  with  the  number  of  regnal  years  of 
each  ( vide  supra , pp.  68).  The  subscription  reads  : 
“ 3°5  years  (being  the  total  of  the  eleven  separate 


1 The  figures  given  on  p.  35  of  Winckler’s  Untersuchungen  are  based 
on  a miscalculation  on  his  part ; he  makes  the  ist  Dynasty  begin  in  2403 
and  end  in  2098,  which  gives  2292 — 2237  as  the  date  of  Khammurabi 
(these  figures  being  practically  the  same  as  those  placed  in  brackets  after 
the  date  1923 — 1868  on  p.  169  of  my  History  of  Babylonia). 

2 My  earlier  conjecture  2168—2113  Semitische  Volker  und  Sfrachen, 
vol.  i.  p.  422,  1883,  was  based  (prior  to  the  discovery  of  the  list  of  Baby- 
lonian kings)  on  Berosus  and  the  dates  assigned  to  his  first  two  dynas  ies 
by  the  data  of  the  tablet  containing  lists  of  dynasties  A and  B. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


1 21 


items  15  + 35  -f-  14  +18  + 30  + 55  + 35  + 25  + 25  -f  22 
+ 31  years),  eleven  kings  of  the  dynasty  of  Baby- 
lon.” On  the  reverse  of  the  same  tablet  is  a list  of 
eleven  other  kings,  but  unaccompanied  by  any  state- 
ment as  to  the  length  of  their  reigns,  the  superscrip- 
tion merely  containing  the  name  of  a town  or  coun- 
try thus:  “ Uru-ku-ki.”  1 The  names  are  as  follows  : 
Ilu-ma-ilu,  Itti-nibi,  Damki-ili-shu,  Sapin-mat-nukurti 
(written  Ish-ki-bal),  Shusshi,  Mu’abbit-kissati  (writ- 
ten Gul-ki-shar),  Mamlu-Ea,2  Apil-Ea-shar-mati  (writ- 
ten A-ea-kalamma),  Apil-Bel-usum-shame  (written 
A-kur-ul-anna),  Milam-matati  (written  Me-lam-kur- 
kurra),  and  Ea-gamil,  after  which  comes  the  sub- 
scription: “Ten  (a  clerical  error  for  “eleven”) 
kings  of  the  dynasty  of  Uru-ku-ki.”  This  superscrip- 
tion, which  obviously  means  that:  “[on  the  other 
hand  the  kings  of]  Uruku  [are  as  follows]  ” clearly 
points— as  the  French  Assyriologist  Halevy  rightly 
surmised  some  years  ago — to  the  assumption  that 
the  two  dynasties  were  contemporaneous. 

When,  however,  the  great  list  of  Babylonian  kings 
was  discovered  and  published  by  Mr.  Pinches  in 


1 Written  with  the  symbol  Uru  (or  Sis)  and  ku  (or  azag ),  and  a local 
suffix  (symbol  ki),  so  that  it  is  quite  possible  to  read  Uru-azag,  Sis-ku  or 
Sis-azag  in  place  of  Uru-ku.  The  name  of  the  well-known  town  Uruk 
(Erech)  is  written  quite  differently  but  is  none  the  less  probably  the 
place  here  referred  to. 

2 Followed  by  the  note,  “ son  of  the  foregoing  a similar  note  is  at- 
tached to  the  name  of  his  successor.  It  would,  therefore,  appear  that 
of  these  eleven  kings,  Mu’abbit-kissati,  Mamlu-Ea  and  Apil-Ea  form  a 
genealogical  sequence  (Father,  Son,  and  Grandson).  For  further  de- 
tails as  to  the  names  of  the  second  dynasty,  cf.  my  review  of  Hilprecht’s 
Assyriaca  in  the  Berl  Phil.  Wochenschrift , xv.  1895,  cols.  1586— -1590. 


122 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


1884,  it  seemed  as  though  this  theory  of  the  co-exist- 
ence  of  the  two  first  dynasties  would  have  to  be 
abandoned  — for  the  list  in  question  placed  the 
Khammurabi  dynasty  first  and  the  Uru-ku  dynasty 
second.  The  close  of  the  third  or  Kassite  dynasty, 
however,  being  once  fixed — a matter  of  no  great 
difficulty  (according  to  the  subscription:  576  years, 
nine  months,  thirty-six  kings),  it  would  now  seem  to 
be  possible  to  arrange  the  two  first  dynasties  in  cor- 
rect chronological  order.  For,  (and  this  seemed  at 
first  to  be  a most  important  point,)  the  list  gives 
figures  for  the  kings  of  the  second  dynasty  also 
(viz. : 60+  55  + 36+15  + 27+55  + 50  + 28  + 26  + 7+9,  the 
subscription  making  out  the  total  to  be  : “ 368  years, 
eleven  kings  of  the  dynasty  of  Uru-ku”).  From 
this  it  would  seem  as  though  one  had  only  to  de- 
termine approximately  the  end  of  dynasty  C and 
then  calculate  backwards,  in  order  to  ascertain  the 
desired  date  for  every  king  of  the  Khammurabi  dy- 
nasty. In  regard  to  the  close  of  dynasty  C,  which, 
provided  there  were  no  gaps  in  the  list,  appears  at 
first  sight  to  be  easily  ascertainable  within  a year  or 
so,  the  authorities  are  fairly  unanimous  : 

Hommel  (1886)  1154  B.c. 

Winckler  (1889)  1155  “ 

Delitzsch  (1891)  1150  “ 

Hilprecht  (1893)  1140  “ 

Winckler  (1894)  1177  “ 

Hommel1  (1895)  1178  “ 

Carl  Niebuhr  (1896)  1169  “ 

1 In  my  short  History  of  the  Ancient  East  (Stuttgart,  Goeschen)  the 
MS.  of  which  had  been  sent  to  the  publishers  before  the  second  volume 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 23 

By  this  it  will  be  seen  that  Hilprecht’s  date  for 
Khammurabi  is  2277— -2222  B.C.,  whereas  the  dates 
suggested  by  Winckler  and  myself  in  1894 — 95,  are 
2315 — 2259  (or  2314 — 2258),  the  difference  between 
these  two  last  dates  being  in  the  case  of  so  remote  a 
period  practically  immaterial.  Moreover,  the  state- 
ment in  later  Babylonian  records  (of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury B.c.)  to  the  effect  that  the  interval  between 
Khammurabi  and  Burnaburiash  (either  Burnaburi- 
ash  L,  ca.  1450,  or  Burnaburiash  11.,  ca.  1400  B.c.) 
was,  in  round  numbers,  700  years  (800  would  be 
more  nearly  what  we  should  expect)  seems  to  be  far 
more  in  favour  of  the  successive  rather  than  of  the 
simultaneous  existence  of  the  two  first  dynasties. 
In  any  case  the  Babylonian  chronographers  of  the 
time  of  King  Nabonidus  (sixth  century  B.c.)  add 
the  two  dynasties  together,  although  this  does  not, 
of  course,  preclude  us  from  eliminating  the  period 
covered  by  the  second  dynasty  from  our  calcula- 
tions. Their  principal  source  of  information  must 
have  been  the  list  of  the  Babylonian  kings,  and  in 
all  probability  a version  of  this  list,  which  either 
fixedthe  duration  of  the  second  dynasty  at  248  years 
(in  place  of  368)  or  made  out  the  third  dynasty  to 
be  120  years  (i.e.  2 x 60)  shorter  than  in  the  existing 
text. 

of  Winckler’s  Altorientalische  Forschungen  appeared  : we  had  both 
therefore  arrived  quite  independently  at  our  conclusions  (1 177  and 
1178),  and  mainly  in  consequence  of  our  mutual  objections  to  Hil- 
precht’s absurdly  late  date  1140.  So  far  as  our  knowledge  extends  at 
present  the  dates  suggested  by  Winckler  and  myself  are  the  most  proba- 
ble. 


124 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


How  comes  it  then,  one  might  ask,  that  in  spite  of 
this,  the  estimate  for  Khammurabi  given  by  me  (on 
p.  1 20)  is  not  2315 — 2259,  but  only  1947 — 1892  (or  in 
round  numbers  1900  B.c.)  ? And,  again,  why  does 
Peiser  adopt  the  period  2139 — 2084  half-way  be- 
tween these  two  extremes? 

The  lower  of  my  two  estimates  is  simply  due  to 
the  fact  that  I still  persist  in  placing  the  third  (or 
Kassite)  dynasty  immediately  after  that  of  Kham- 
murabi. This  had  been  my  view  even  when  I was 
engaged  on  my  History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria , 
only  that  at  that  time  I believed  the  first  two  dy- 
nasties should  have  been  made  to  change  places, 
whereas  I have  now  come  round  to  Halevy’s  view 
and  regard  them  as  contemporary  with  one  another. 
Taking  the  year  1178  B.c.  as  the  likeliest  date  for 
the  close  of  Dynasty  C,  I thus  obtain  1753 — 1178  as 
the  period  covered  by  it ; and  consequently  for  the 
Khammurabi  dynasty  the  304  years  which  immedi- 
ately preceded  it,  i.e.  2058 — 1754  B.C.,  the  reign  of 
Khammurabi  himself  (the  Amraphel  of  Gen.  xiv.  1) 
occupying  1947 — 1892  B.C. 

This  theory  (of  the  co-existence  of  Dynasties  A 
and  B)  which  receives  strong  confirmation  from  the 
small  tablet  previously  mentioned  (and  especially 
from  the  absence  of  figures  in  the  case  of  the  second 
dynasty),  is  further  supported  by  two  considerations 
or  facts  which  no  one  has,  so  far,  been  able  to  inval- 
idate. First,  we  have  the  circumstance— and  it  is 
one  which  now,  in  the  light  of  recent  research,  pos- 
sesses even  greater  weight  than  formerly — that  Bib- 
lical tradition  also  refers  the  time  of  Abraham  to 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 25 

the  twentieth  century  B.C. ; and  second,  the  fact 
that,  from  a purely  Assyriological  standpoint,  there 
is  good  reason  for  doubting  whether  the  so-called 
“ second  dynasty  ” ever  really  existed  in  that  capac- 
ity. It  is  becoming  clear  to  the  historian  that  the 
“ Dynasty  of  Uru-ku  ” is  entirely  apocryphal  and 
the  less  that  one  has  to  do  with  its  chronology  the 
better. 

In  regard  to  the  chronology  of  the  Bible,  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  from  the  time  of  David  and  the 
Judges  backward  it  is  deficient  in  that  high  degree 
of  definiteness  which  the  scientific  historical  inves- 
tigator is  inclined  to  demand.  There  are,  however, 
certain  important  events  the  dates  of  which  can  be 
determined  with  approximate  accuracy.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  the  Exodus  of  the  Israelites  from  the 
land  of  Egypt,  which  must  have  taken  place  either 
in  the  closing  years  of  Ramses  the  Great  (1348 — 1281) 
or,  which  is  more  likely,  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  suc- 
cessor Minephtah1  (1277  B.c.).  If  we  add  to  this 
last  figure  the  traditional  sojourn  of  430  years  in 
the  land  of  Goshen  we  get  a total  of  1707.  The  pa- 
triarch Jacob  is  said  to  have  migrated  into  Egypt 
with  his  people  at  the  age  of  130;  this  gives  the 
year  of  his  birth  as  1707  + 130=  1837  B.c.  At  that 
time  his  grandfather  Abraham  was,  according  to  the 
tradition,  160  years  old,  therefore,  1837  4-  160  = 1997 
= birth  of  Abraham.  This  patriarch  migrated  from 
Haran  to  Canaan  in  his  seventy-fifth  year,  i.e.  about 

1 In  any  case  the  Israelites  were  not  settled  in  Palestine  at  the  date 
of  the  Tel-el-Amarna  tablets  (ca.  1400  B.c.).  The  Biblical  tradition 
also  clearly  indicates  Ramses  II.  as  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Oppression. 


126 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


1922,  and  the  battle  in  the  valley  of  Siddim  de- 
scribed in  Gen.  xiv.  must  have  taken  place  very 
soon  after,  that  is  at  a time  when  Khammurabi  had 
been  at  least  fourteen  years  on  the  throne.  This,  as 
nearly  as  possible,  coincides  with  the  period  postu- 
lated above  for  the  reign  of  Khammurabi,  viz.  1947 
— 1892  B.c. 

But  now  let  us  return  to  Dynasty  B (i.e.  the 
eleven  kings  of  Uru-ku  mentioned  on  p.  121)  which 
seems  to  stand  in  open  contradiction  with  this  later 
date.  In  the  first  place,  the  figures  added  to  the  list 
of  kings  are  open  to  grave  suspicion.  Compared 
with  those  given  in  the  case  of  Dynasty  A,  these 
figures,  and  indeed  the  whole  constitution  of  this 
Uru-ku  dynasty,  give  the  impression  of  an  artificial 
scheme.  As  in  the  case  of  Dynasty  A (the  exist- 
ence of  which  is  amply  attested  by  the  evidence  of 
contracts  and  royal  inscriptions),  we  here  find  ex- 
actly eleven  kings.  Again  as  in  Dynasty  A,  in  which 
the  sixth  king,  Khammurabi,  reigned  fifty-five  years, 
so  here  too,  the  sixth  king  Gul-ki-shar  or  Mu’abbit- 
kissati  ( = destroyer  of  the  world)  also  reigned 
exactly  fifty-five  years.  Such  a long  reign  in  a dy- 
nasty of  eleven  kings  is  for  once  in  a way  conceiv- 
able enough  ; it  is  singular,  however,  that  this  high 
figure  recurs  at  precisely  the  same  place  in  Dynasty 
B as  it  occupies  in  its  twin-brother,  Dynasty  A,  and 
-—■more  remarkable  still— in  Dynasty  B the  figures 
60  and  55  also  appear  in  the  first  and  second  place, 
^nd  50  in  the  seventh  place,  just  as  in  Dynasty  A.1 

1 It  is  true  that  the  sacred  number  60  at  the  beginning  of  the  list  is 
written  as  the  figure  i ; that  this,  however,  was  read  as  60  (viz.  I Sos) 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 27 

Add  to  this  that  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth 
kings  (with  reigns  of  55  + 50  + 28  = 133  years)  form 
a genealogical  series  of  three  ( vide  supra , p.  12 1, 
Note  2).  Reigns  of  55  + 35+25  years  (Dynasty  A, 
Nos.  6 — 8)  are  intelligible  enough  in  the  case  of  a 
father,  son  and  grandson,  but  successive  reigns  of 
fifty-five,  fifty,  and  twenty-eight  years  can  only  be 
explained  on  the  assumption  that  the  first  king  of 
the  three  ascended  the  throne  at  a very  tender  age, 
a thing  which  is  extremely  improbable  in  the  case 
of  Gul-ki-shar,  since  he  is  not  described  as  the  son 
of  his  predecessor.  Moreover,  the  fact  that  the 
period  from  the  central  date  (the  death  of  Gul-ki- 
shar)  to  the  end  of  the  dynasty  is  exactly  120  years, 
or  two  Sos,  (viz.  50  + 28  + 26  + 7 + 9)  is  highly  sus- 
picious. All  this  goes  to  prove  that  the  figures,  at 
any  rate,  are  apocryphal,  since  the  numbers  appear 
in  the  List  of  Kings  only  and  are  not  to  be  found 
on  the  Tablet  in  connection  with  Dynasty  B (see  p. 
120  et  seq.),  a fact  which  I again  desire  to  empha- 
size. 

A similar  remark  may  be  applied  to  the  individ- 
uals of  the  dynasty.  There  are  only  two  of  the 
whole  eleven  kings  of  Uru-ku  in  regard  to  whom 
we  possess  any  information,  although  if  they  suc- 
ceeded to  those  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty,  they 
must  presumably  like  them,  and  like  the  dynasties 
who  followed  them  (eg.  Dynasty  C,  etc.),  have 
ruled  in  Babylon.  These  two  kings  are  the  first, 
Ilu-ma-ilu  (abbreviated  to  Ilu  - ma  in  the  List  of 

at  any  rate  by  the  copyist  of  the  list  of  kings  is  evident  from  the  total  of 
368  years.  Otherwise  the  total  would  be  only  309. 


128 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Kings),  and  the  sixth,  Gulkishar  (Mu’abbit-kissati). 
But  what  title  do  they  bear  in  those  inscriptions 
that  mention  them?  That  of  Kings  of  Babylon? 
By  no  means!  One  of  them  (in  a short  contempo- 
rary inscription)  is  described  as  “ King  of  the  hosts 
of  Erech,”  and  the  other  (in  an  inscription  of  the 
time  of  Dynasty  D)  as  “ King  of  the  country  of  the 
sea,”  i.e.  of  the  southernmost  part  of  Babylon  on  the 
Persian  Gulf.  The  first  of  these  inscriptions  (which 
is  of  interest  in  other  respects  as  well)  runs  as  fol- 
lows : 1 

Ilu-ma  (written  in  the  Sumerian  form  DINGIR- 
A-AN) 

Sheikh  (written  ab-ba,  i.e.  shibu)  of  the  hosts  of 
Uruk  (Erech) 

Son  of  Bel-shimia, 
has  the  walls  of  Erech 
the  ancient  building 

of  Gibil-gamis  {i.e.  of  Gishdubar  or  Nimrod) 
again  repaired. 

With  this  inscription,  as  Hilprecht  afterward 
pointed  out,  must  be  classed  another  of  the  time  of 
the  kings  of  Erech  (and  therefore  probably  contem- 
porary with  the  predecessors  of  King  Eriaku  of 
Larsa  who  conquered  Erech),  published  by  Peiser 
and  Winckler  {Keilinschr.  Bibl.  III.  p.  84:)  “To 
Nirgal,  the  king  of  the  lower  world,  his  king,  has 
Iluma-Gishdubba,  son  of  Bel-Shimea,  built  his  tem- 
ple for  the  preservation  of  the  life  of  Sin-gamil,  king 
of  Erech.”  From  this  we  learn  the  full  name  of  this 

1 Hilprecht,  Old  Babylonian  Inscriptions , No.  26,  first  translated 
by  me  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Bibl.  Arch.  Soc.,  Nov.  1893. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 29 

king  Ilu-ma-ilu  ( — God  is  God),  viz.  Ilu-ma-Gish- 
dubba  ( i.e . “ God  is  Gishdubba,”  the  deified  Gish- 
dubar,  whose  ancient  wall  Ilu-ma  had  restored  and 
whose  name  he  had  taken).  Ilu-ma  was,  therefore, 
the  vassal  of  one  of  the  contemporaneous  and  still 
independent  kings  of  Erech,  and,  as  it  would  seem, 
the  chief  of  some  tribe  of  Semitic  nomads ; Gish- 
dubar,  his  patron  deity,  was  also,  as  we  have  seen 
above  (p.  39),  intimately  associated  with  Arabia. 
This  is  in  no  way  incompatible  with  my  assump- 
tion that  he  was  a contemporary  of  the  Arab  mon- 
arch Shumu-abi,  the  founder  of  the  Khammurabi 
Dynasty,  and  very  possibly  one  of  his  allies.  For, 
that  there  were  several  Arab  princes  ruling  in  Baby- 
lon at  that  time  is  proved  by  the  date-formula  of  a 
contract  discovered  by  Mr.  Pinches,  in  which  the 
“ kings  ” Shumu  - abi  and  Pungunu  - ilu  1 are  men- 
tioned. 

Gulkishar  is  described  as  king  of  “ the  country  of 
the  sea  ” 2 on  a boundary  stone  published  and  trans- 
lated by  Hilprecht  and  dated  in  the  fourth  year  of 
king  Bel-nadin-apli  (ca.  1122 — 1118  B.c.)  the  immedi- 
ate successor  of  king  Nebuchadnezzar  I.  (ca.  1145 — 

1 122).  From  this  monument  we  learn  that  from  the 
time  of  Gulkishar,  king  of  the  countries  of  the  sea 
(i.e.  from  his  death),  to  Nebuchadnezzar  a period  of 
one  Ner  ( = 600  years)  one  Sos  ( = sixty  years)  and 
thirty-six  years,  or  696  in  all  had  elapsed ; that  is  to 

1 As  to  this  latter,  cf.  the  personal  names  Piknanum,  Paknu  and 
Pikinnu,  which  are  also  probably  Arabic. 

2 Probably  a part  of  Arabia,  viz.  the  region  bordering  on  the  Babylo- 
nian frontier  ; cf.  the  expression  “ Ass  of  the  Sea,”  used  of  the  camel. 

9 


130  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

say,  that  we  have  only  to  add  to  this  the  four  years 
of  Bel-nadin-apli’s  reign  in  order  to  obtain  a total  of 
700  years.  It  is  needless  to  remark,  that  these  are 
merely  round  numbers  similar  to  the  period  of  700 
years  fixed  by  the  chronographers  of  Nabonidus  as 
the  interval  between  Khammurabiand  Burnaburiash 
{vide  supra,  p.  123  and  note).1  Let  us  now  go  back 
to  the  year  1820  B.C.,  a date  which,  according  to 
my  calculations  given  above  would  fall  somewhere 
in  the  reign  of  the  Babylonian  king  Ammi-sata- 
na.  At  the  first  glance  it  will  be  evident  that 
Gulkishar  (“Destroyer  of  the  World”)  is  not  the 
sort  of  name  which  a Babylonian  prince  would  be 
likely  to  receive  from  his  father  at  his  birth,  but 
rather  a sobriquet  like  Ish-ki-bal  (Sapin-mat-nakurti 
~ Overthrower  of  hostile  countries)  bestowed  by 
posterity  on  a mighty  conqueror,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing more  probable  than  that,  after  the  fall  of  the 
Arabian  dynasty  of  Khammurabi,  one  of  its  kings 
should  have  been  handed  down  in  the  Babylonian 
tradition,  under  the  awe  - inspiring  name  of  “ de- 
stroyer of  the  world.”  That  the  records  of  the  gen- 
uine Babylonian  dynasty  D to  which  Nebuchadnez- 
zar I.  and  Bel-nadin-apli  belonged,  should  describe 
him  as  king  of  the  country  of  the  sea  (N.E.  Arabia), 
and  not  as  king  of  Babylonia  is  perfectly  intelligible. 


1 In  the  List  of  Kings  the  duration  of  Dynasty  C is  given  as  9 Sos 
(9  x 60  = 540  years)  and  36  years  ; probably  the  figures  of  the  boun- 
dary stone  would  agree  with  these  but  for  the  fact  that  a period  of  sixty 
years  has  been  added  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end,  in  order  to  ar- 
rive at  the  full  total  of  696  + 4 = 700  years  in  round  numbers.  Ex- 
treme accuracy  was  evidently  not  the  object  in  view. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 3 1 

Moreover  the  name  of  the  region  referred  to  in  Bel- 
nadin-apli’s  boundary  mark,  viz.  Bit-Sin-magir,  is  a 
reminiscence  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty.  Indeed 
the  personal  name  Sin-magir  frequently  occurs  in 
the  contract  tablets,  especially  in  those  of  the  time 
of  kings  Sin-muballit,  Eri-aku,  Khammu-rabi  and 
Samsu  - iluna.  Revillout  in  his  well-known  work 
Les  obligations  en  droit  Egyptien  compare  aux  antres 
droits  de  Vantiquite  makes  special  mention  of  a cer- 
tain Sin-magir  as  the  head  of  a widely-distributed 
family  ; in  a contract  tablet  of  the  time  of  Khammu- 
rabi express  reference  is  made  to  the  house  (bitu) 
and  garden  of  this  Sin-magir. 

All  this  goes  to  show  that  until  the  matter  is  defi- 
nitely decided  by  some  future  discovery,  our  safest 
course  will  be  to  regard  the  Uru-ku  dynasty  as 
apocryphal.  The  ultimate  decision  may  be  in 
favour  of  my  theory,  or  on  the  other  hand  it  may 
confirm  the  later  Babylonian  view,  according  to 
which  the  304  years  of  the  Khammu-rabi  dynasty, 
and  the  (as  we  have  seen,  extremely  uncertain 
period  of)  368  years  of  dynasty  B ought  to  be  added 
together  in  our  chronological  calculations.  I look 
forward  to  future  discoveries  of  this  kind  with  an 
untroubled  mind,  for  I am  firmly  convinced  before- 
hand, that  they  will  merely  tend  to  confirm  the  evi- 
dence of  the  ancient  records  and  monuments  so  far 
known  to  us.  Among  ancient  monuments,  how- 
ever, 1 can  only  include  those  parts  of  the  List  of 
Kings  which  can  be  checked  by  contemporary  rec- 
ords and  thus  proved  to  have  come  down  to  us  in- 
tact. This  verification  has  actually  been  made  in 


132 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


the  case  of  all  the  other  dynasties,  that  of  Uru-ku 
being  the  sole  exception. 

The  whole  question  is  one  of  decisive  importance 
for  the  Biblical  chronology  of  the  earliest  period, 
and,  therefore,  has  been  specially  dealt  with  in  the 
present  chapter  (p.  1 1 8 et  seq).  For  if  we  admit  that 
Khammurabi  reigned,  not  from  1947  to  1892,  but  from 
2314  to  2258,  then  the  period  between  Abraham 
and  Moses  would  be  not  650  but  1,000  years,  and 
between  Abraham  and  Joseph  not  200  but  550 years: 
we  should  in  that  case  be  obliged  to  assume  one  of 
three  things.  Either  that  a later  generation,  look- 
ing back  on  the  vistas  of  the  past,  was  deceived  by 
some  optical  illusion  similar  to  that  which  makes 
two  hilltops  that  are  really  separated  by  spacious 
valleys  seem  to  stand  quite  close  to  one  another;  or 
else  that  there  may  possibly  have  been  two  patri- 
archs named  Jacob  who  lived  at  periods  centuries 
apart  from  one  another,  one  of  them  the  grandson 
of  Abraham,  the  other  the  father  of  Joseph,  and  that 
a later  tradition  merged  these  two  individuals  into 
one ; or  lastly,  that  Abraham  did  indeed  flourish 
about  the  year  1900  B.C.,  but  that  his  association 
with  Khammu-rabi,  Kudur-laghamar  and  Eri-aku  is 
apocryphal.  I need  hardly  say  that  the  acceptance 
of  any  one  of  these  hypotheses  would  be  merely 
bringing  grist  to  the  mill  of  the  modern  critics  of 
the  Pentateuch. 

A very  acute  and  ingenious  attempt  to  solve  this 
difficulty  was  made  by  Felix  Peiser  in  the  year  1891 
( Zeitschrift  fur  Assyriologie , VI.  pp.  264 — 271  ; Zur 
Babylonischen  Chronologie ),  and  as  I have  already 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 33 

promised  my  readers  an  explanation  of  the  differ- 
ences between  Peiser’s  results  and  my  own  in  re- 
gard to  the  date  of  Khammu-rabi  2139—2084  ( vide 
supra , p.  120),  I cannot  do  better  than  give  a brief 
summary  of  the  solution  proposed  by  him.  He 
starts  from  the  hypothesis  that  the  much-debated 
dynasty  lists  of  the  Babylonian  priest  Berosus,  ends, 
not  as  has  hitherto  been  assumed,  with  Nabonassar 
(in  747  B.C.),  but  rather  with  the  accession  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great  (in  331  B.c.)  Now  the  total  duration 
of  the  historical  dynasties  of  Berosus  as  carefully  es- 
timated by  A.  von  Gutschmidt  is  36000 — 34080  — 1920 
years.  If  we  add  331  to  this  total  we  get  2251  B.c.  as 
the  beginning  of  the  Khammu-rabi  dynasty.  Peiser 
thus  obtained  for  Dynasty  A (lasting  304  years)  the 
period  2251—1947  (i.e.  2139 — 2084  as  the  reign  of 
Khammu-rabi),  for  Dynasty  B (368  years)  1947— 
1579,  and  for  the  (Kassite)  Dynasty  C (the  final 
close  of  which  Peiser  agrees  with  Winckler  and 
myself  in  fixing  at  1180  B.C.)  1579 — 1180,  that  is  a 
duration  of  399  years  instead  of  the  576  years  given 
in  the  List  of  Kings.  He  explains  this  result  by  as- 
suming that  some  later  copyist  instead  of  repro- 
ducing the  6 Sos  and  39  years  (i.e.  360  + 39  = 399) 
of  his  original,  wrote  9 Sos  and  36  years  (i.e.  540  + 
36  = 576)  in  error.  Peiser  was  the  more  firmly  con- 
vinced of  this,  because  it  agrees  with  the  estimate 
which  fixes  the  interval  between  Khammurabi  (f 
according  to  Peiser  2084  B.c.)  and  Burnaburiash  (ca. 
1400  B.c.)  at  700  years:  for  2084—1400  = 684  years, 
which  is  as  near  the  round  number  of  700  as  we 
can  ever  hope  to  get  in  matters  of  this  kind.  Now 


134  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Peiser  might  very  well  have  asked  himself  whether 
the  mistake  in  the  List  of  Babylonian  Kings,  in- 
stead of  occurring  in  the  total  of  Dynasty  C,  ought 
not  rather  to  be  looked  for  in  Dynasty  B,  the  indi- 
vidual figures  of  which  lie  open  to  such  grave  sus- 
picion. It  is  true  enough  that  the  total  of  576 
years,  as  Peiser  rightly  points  out,  is  somewhat 
questionable.  Dynasty  C includes  36  kings ; and  if 
it  had  lasted  for  576  years  this  would  give  each 
king  an  average  reign  of  16  years,  (16  x 36  = 576). 
Now  the  names  of  the  last  15  kings  of  this  dy- 
nasty and  the  periods  for  which  they  reigned  are 
known  to  us:  the  total  comes  out  at  186  years,  and 
the  average  reign  at  12^  years.  Assuming,  there- 
fore, that  576  is  the  correct  total,  the  first  21  kings 
must  have  reigned  for  a period  of  390  years,  or  an 
average  of  i8y£  years  each,  a result  which  Peiser 
regards  as  improbable.  Or,  since  we  can  fix  the 
date  of  the  reign  of  Burnaburiash  II.  (the  18th 
king  of  the  dynasty),  approximately  at  ca.  1410 
— 1380  B.c.  the  total  reign  of  Nos.  18 — 36  (19  kings 
in  all)  would  then  be  222  years,  or  an  aver- 
age of  barely  12  years  each:  the  first  17  on  the 
other  hand  would,  according  to  the  list,  have 
reigned  343  years,  or  an  average  of  over  20  years 
each. 

But  even  allowing,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  the 
improbability  of  the  average  of  the  second  half 
having  been  only  12  years  as  against  20  years  for 
the  first  half,  Peiser’s  reduction  of  the  total  from 
576  to  399  years  (t.e.  from  9 to  6 Sos  omitting  odd 
years)  goes  too  far.  Even  assuming  that  the  aver- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


135 


age  length  of  reign  was  the  same  in  both  halves  (viz. 
12  years)  this  would  give  us  a total  of  about  420 
years  [432] : or  if  we  assume  that  the  average  reigns 
in  the  first  half  was  14  years  and  in  the  second  only 
12  years,  this  would  give  a total  of  about  460  [456] 
years  (i.e.  7 Sos,  36  years,  instead  of  the  9 Sos,  36 
years  recorded  in  the  list).  Peiser  has,  moreover, 
entirely  overlooked  the  fact  that  an  average  of  12, 
far  from  being  a normal  one,  is  exceptionally  low 
and  that  therefore  the  balance  of  probability  would 
be  in  favour  of  a higher  average  for  the  first  half, 
and,  consequently,  for  the  dynasty  as  a whole.  1 
will  try  to  make  this  clearer  by  one  or  two  parallel 
instances.  Eighteen  kings  ruled  over  Assyria  dur- 
ing a period  of  322  years  {i.e.  from  ca.  930  to  608 
B.c.) ; in  other  words  for  an  average  of  nearly  18 
years  each  ; the  first  nine  of  these  reigned  for  a 
total  period  of  176  years  (an  average  of  over  19 
years  each) ; the  remaining  9 reigned  for  a total 
period  of  146  years  (an  average  of  16^  }^ears).  The 
first  Babylonian  dynasty  (in  which  from  the  time  of 
the  second  king  onwards  the  throne  descended 
from  father  to  son)  included  11  kings  with  a total 
duration  of  304  years ; an  average  of  over  27  years 
each.  The  Neo-Babylonian  Empire  consisted  of  6 
kings  who  ruled  for  88  years,  an  average  of  nearly 
15  years,  while  for  the  16  kings  who  preceded  them, 
the  average  was  barely  7 years  each  : this  how- 
ever is  sufficiently  explained  by  the  dependent 
state  of  Assyria  during  this  time,  and  the  frequent 
change  of  rulers  necessitated  by  this : such  an 
epoch  cannot  be  fairly  used  as  a basis  of  compari- 


136 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


son.  The  first  half  of  the  Kassite  dynasty  was,  in 
the  main,  a time  of  peaceful  development,  while  in 
the  second  half  the  rise  of  Assyrian  power  and  its 
intervention  in  Babylonian  affairs,  together  with 
the  growing  national  Babylonian  reaction  against 
the  Kassites,  rendered  the  political  situation  much 
less  stable.  We  know  that  the  first  three  monarchs 
of  this  dynasty  reigned  for  60  years  altogether 
(16  + 22  + 22),  while  the  reign  of  the  seventh  Agu- 
kakrimi  was  very  probably  a rather  long  one  (30 — 
40  years)  ; and,  besides,  the  Babylonian  kings 
who  exercised  a supremacy  co  - equal  with  that 
of  the  Pharaohs  of  the  XVIIIth  dynasty  (notably 
Kurigalzu  I.  and  Burnaburiash  II.)  also  belong 
to  the  first  half  of  the  Kassite  dynasty.  All 
the  evidence,  therefore,  goes  to  prove  that  the 
average  reign  of  the  kings  in  the  first  half  of 
the  Kassite  Dynasty  was  much  longer  than  in  the 
second  half. 

And  yet  Peiser’s  attempt  deserves  most  careful 
attention  ; only  we  must  seek  to  effect  the  principal 
reduction  somewhere  else  and  not  in  the  Kassite 
dynasty.  For  example,  we  should  arrive  at  precisely 
the  same  result  if  we  assumed  the  duration  of  the 
Kassite  dynasty  to  have  been  516  years  in  the  docu- 
ment from  which  Berosus  obtained  his  information 
(i.e.  only  60  years  less  than  in  the  List  of  Kings),  but 
that  the  second  dynasty  which  he  and  the  later 
Babylonian  chronographers  add  on  to  it,  lasted  for 
2 Sos  (or  120  years)  less  than  the  368  years  given  in 
the  list,  i.e.  248  years.  We  thus  obtain  the  following 
result : 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


3 7 


End  of  the  Dynasties  of  Berosus  331  B.c. 

Beginning:  331  + 1920  =2251  “ 

Khammu-rabi  Dynasty  2251 — 1947  “ 

Khammu-rabi  2139—2084  “ 

Uru-ku  Dynasty  1946—1699  “ 

Kassite  Dynasty  1698 — 1183  “ 

The  close  of  Dynasty  C would  in  this  case  fall  in 
the  year  1183  instead  of  1180  as  assumed  by  Peiser, 
or  instead  of  1178  as  I estimate  it,  an  absolutely  triv- 
ial disparity. 

That  Berosus  was  probably  in  error  when  he  esti- 
mated the  duration  of  the  Kassite  Dynasty  at  8 Sos 
and  36  years  (instead  of  9 Sos  and  36  years),  and  thus 
reduced  the  period  for  the  Babylonian  dynasties,  up 
to  the  time  of  Alexander,  from  1980  to  1920  years,  is 
evident  if  we  add  this  one  Sos  to  all  the  dates  men- 
tioned above,  thus : 

Dynasty  A 2311 — 2007  B.c. 

Khammu-rabi  2199 — 2144  “ 

Dynasty  B 2006 — 1759  “ 

Dynasty  C 1758—1183  “ 

This  estimate  harmonizes  much  more  closely  with 
the  period  of  700  years  between  Burnaburiash  (ca. 
1440  B.c.)  and  Khammu-rabi  (i.e.  the  death  of  this 
latter  in  ca.  2140  B.c.)  than  does  Peiser’s  (Khammu- 
rabi  2139—2084).  For,  since  in  the  estimate  in 
question  there  is  nothing  to  show  which  Burna- 
buriash is  intended,  it  is  best  to  assume  that  it  was 
Burnaburiash  I.  (ca.  1440  B.c.)  rather  than  Burna- 
buriash II.  (ca.  1410—1380).  As  I have  already 
pointed  out,  however,  the  whole  estimate  depends 
on  the  mistaken  addition  of  Dynasty  A to  Dynasty 


133  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

B.  The  key  to  the  whole  problem  lies  in  the  fact 
that  this  addition  is  inadmissible.  In  so  far  as  the 
proposed  emendation  of  Berosus  is  concerned,  it 
matters  not  whether  we  decide  in  favour  of  2251  as 
proposed  by  Peiser,  or  2311  as  suggested  b)T  me,  for 
our  point  of  departure ; it  will  be  necessary,  in 
either  case — if  we  wish  to  get  at  the  original  record, 
and  consequently,  the  real  date  of  the  first  dynasty 
— to  subtract  the  number  248  (which  I have  shown 
above  to  be  the  most  probable  estimate  of  the  total 
duration  of  Dynasty  B).  We  shall  thus  finally  ob- 
tain the  following  dates : 

Dynasty  A either  2003 — 1699  or  2063 — 1759 
Khammu-rabi  “ 1891  — 1836  “ 1951 — 1896 

Dynasty  C “ 1698 — 1183  “ 1758 — 1183 

The  second  alternative  approaches  very  nearly  the 
estimate  given  by  me  quite  independently  of  Peiser 
on  p.  120,  viz:  Dynasty  A,  2058 — 1754  (Khammu- 
rabi  1947 — 1892)  and  Dynasty  C,  1753 — 1178.  The 
first  alternative  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  the 
576  years  assigned  to  Dynasty  C in  the  List  of 
Kings,  ought  to  be  reduced  by  at  least  1 Sos  (=60 
years),  and  harmonizes  pretty  closely  with  the  Bible 
figures  in  so  far  as  Khammu-rabi  and  the  date  of 
Abraham  are  concerned.  Even  were  Peiser  right 
in  reducing  the  duration  of  Dynasty  C by  180  years 
and  accepting  the  368  years  of  Dynasty  B unaltered 
(though  I repeat  that  this  latter  total  must  at  all 
costs  be  excluded  from  our  calculations !)  which  in 
the  face  of  what  I have  said  above  is  extremely 
improbable,  we  should  have  the  following  minimum 
dates  : 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 39 

Dynasty  A 1893 — 1579  B-c* 

Khammu-rabi  1771  — 1716  “ 

Dynasty  C 1578 — 1180  “ 

These  minimum  dates,  however,  could  only  be 
made  to  harmonize  with  the  Biblical  chronology  if 
we  were  to  assume  that  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob 
(the  last-named,  it  will  be  remembered,  migrated 
with  his  people  into  Egypt  at  a very  advanced  age) 
never  attained  the  extreme  longevity  ascribed  to 
them  in  the  Bible,  and  that  the  episode  narrated  in 
Genesis  xiv.  did  not  take  place  until  thirty  years 
after  the  birth  of  Isaac. 

We  have,  therefore,  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  year  1900  B.c.  was,  in  round  numbers,  the  ap- 
proximately correct  date  of  Abraham’s  migration 
from  Haran  and  of  his  participation  in  the  campaign 
conducted  against  the  king  of  Sodom  by  Chedorla’- 
omer,  Arioch  and  Amraphel,  a subject  which  I pro- 
pose to  examine  more  closely  in  my  next  chapter. 

In  addition  to  the  identity  of  its  founder  Iluma 
with  a vassal  of  the  kings  of  Erech  ( vide  supra , pp. 
128  et  seq.)  we  possess  further  direct  evidence  of  the 
simultaneous  existence  of  the  problematic  Uru-ku 
Dynasty  and  that  of  Khammu-rabi.  It  comes  to  us 
from  a quarter  in  which  no  one  had  hitherto  dreamt 
of  looking  for  it. 

It  is  a well-known  fact  that  the  beginnings  of  the 
Assyrian  empire  can  be  traced  back  to  somewhere 
about  the  year  1850  B.c.  We  are  told  by  Tiglath- 
piieser  I.  (ca.  1120)  that  some  sixty  years  before  his 
time,  his  great-grandfather  Assur-dan,  a contempo- 
rary of  the  last  king  but  one  of  the  Kassite  Dynasty 


140 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


wished  to  restore  a temple,  which  had  been  built 
641  years  earlier  by  the  priest-king  (patesi)  of  As- 
syria, Samsi-Ramman,  son  of  the  priest-king  Ishmi- 
Dagan  of  Assyria;  Assur-dan  pulled  the  old  temple 
down,  but  was  prevented  by  some  cause  or  other, 
most  probably  by  his  death,  from  rebuilding  it,  and 
thus  it  remained  until  Tiglathpileser  took  the  task 
in  hand.  This  brings  us  to  the  year  1820,  or  so,  for 
the  date  of  tlie  Samsi-Ramman  ( ?=  my  Sun  is  Ram- 
man,)  in  question.  He  had,  however,  been  preceded 
on  the  throne  by  another  patesi \ also  named  Samsi- 
Ramman,  son  of  Bel-kap-kapu  (written  Igur-kap- 
kapu),  who  is  mentioned  in  the  original  monuments, 
and  probably  in  several  others  as  well.  It  has  always 
been  rightly  assumed  that,  as  the  Assyrian  civiliza- 
tion w'as  merely  a copy  of  the  Babylonian,1  this 
priest-king  of  the  19th  century  B.c.  must  have  been 
intimately  connected  with  Babylon  either  as  a vassal 
or  as  a voluntary  ally. 

Now,  if  the  Khammu-rabi  dynasty  was  in  power 
from  2050  to  1750  B.c.  it  must  have  been  with  this 
dynasty  that  the  earliest  Assyrian  princes  were  con- 
nected either  as  dependents  or  as  allies.  That  it 
really  was  this  dynasty  and  no  other  can  be  proved 
beyond  dispute  by  evidence  of  a two-fold  nature  as 
I shall  now  proceed  to  briefly  explain. 

In  the  first  place,  the  early  Assyrian  contract 

1 Cf.  Gen.  x.  ii.  : “ out  of  that  land  [Babylonia]  he  [Nimrod]  went 
forth  into  Assyria  and  budded  Nineveh,  and  Rehoboth-Tr,  and  Calah 
and  Resen  ” ( = Nisin  ? This  must,  therefore,  have  been  a colony  of  the 
Babylonian  Nisin,  cf.  Ishmi-Dagan,  which  occurs  both  as  the  name  of 
a king  of  Nisin  and  of  a patesi  of  Assyria). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  141 

tablets  discovered  in  Cappadocia  (not  far  from  the 
modern  Caesarea)  shew  both  by  the  various  char- 
acteristic personal  names  that  occur  in  them  and 
also  by  their  script  and  style  such  striking  resem- 
blance to  the  contract-tablets  of  the  Khammu-rabi 
dynasty  that  it  is  impossible  to  assign  them  to  any 
other  epoch.1 

It  is  true  that  Delitzsch  had  already  noticed  one 
or  two  of  these  coincidences,  but  had  not  drawn 
from  them  the  only  possible  conclusion  in  regard  to 
the  date  of  the  tablets  in  which  they  occur ; here 
and  there  indeed  he  seems  to  have  some  inkling  of 
the  true  state  of  the  case  (cf.  for  example  pp.  66 
and  270,  note  1 of  his  treatise),  but  he  nevertheless 
ends  by  declaring  that  for  the  present  the  period  to 
which  they  belong  seems  to  be  an  enigma  to  which 
no  answer  is,  as  yet,  forthcoming. 


1 We  have  only  to  compare  such  names  as  Amur-Ashir,  Amur-Samas, 
Asliir-Emuki,  Ashur-ishtakal,  Ashur-rabi,  Ashir-tayar,  Ashur-bani,  Ilu- 
bani,  Ishtar-lamazi,  Ashur  - imiti,  Ennam  - Ashir,  Ennam  - Ai,  Pilakh- 
Ashur,  Zili-Ishtar,  Manum-bali-Ashir  (=  who  would  be  without  Ashir?), 
Manum-ki- Ashur  ( = who  is  like  unto  Ashur?)  taken  from  the  22  tab- 
lets recently  annotated  by  Delitzsch,  and  which  had  previously  been 
edited  by  Goleniseheff,*  with  names  of  precisely  similar  formation  found 
in  the  tablets  of  the  Khammu-rabi  Dynasty,  such  as  Ilima-amur,  Ut- 
emuki,  Ui-ishtikal,  Samas-rabi  etc.,  Marduk-taiar,  Samas-bani,  Lamazi, 
Sin-imili,  Ennam-Sin,  Sin-pilakh,  Tsili  Ishtar,  Manum-balu-ili,  Manum- 
balu-Ishtar,  Manu-shanin-Samas  (see  p.  70  and  earlier,  the  last-men- 
tioned name  = “ who  can  withstand  Samas  ? ”). 


* W.  Golfnischeff.  Vingt  quatre  tablettes  Cappodociennes  de  la  col- 
lection IV.  Goleniseheff y St.  Petersburg,  1891  : F.  Delitzsch,  Beitrdge 
zur  Entzifferung  und  Erkldrung  der  Ka ppadokisehen  Keilschrifttafeln^ 
Leipzig,  1893  (A bit.  der  Sacks.  Gesellschaft , d.  Wiss.,  Vol.  xiv.  No.  4). 


142 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Peiser  1 goes  back  as  far  as  the  time  of  the  Assyr- 
ian king  Shalmaneser  I.  (ca.  1300  B.C.),  but  he  too  is 
misled  into  identifying  such  unimpeachable  Baby- 
lonian names  as  Sugalia,  Garia  and  the  like  (where 
the  termination  ia  denotes  a hypocoristic  contrac- 
tion of  a longer  name),  with  the  divine  appellation 
Yahu,  and  therefore  concludes  that  the  contracts 
must  have  been  indited  at  the  time  of  a Phoenicio- 
Canaanite  colonization  of  Cappadocia.  All  this, 
however,  in  the  face  of  the  coincidences  mentioned 
above,  is  to  no  purpose  ; the  time  of  the  Khammu- 
rabi  dynasty  is,  here,  the  only  one  worth  considera- 
tion. 

In  the  second  place,  we  also  find  in  these  Cappa- 
docian contract  tablets  unmistakeable  traces  of  that 
Arabian  element  which  had  previously  impressed  us 
as  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  contracts  of  the 
Khammu-rabi  dynasty  — itself  an  Arabian  regime , 
viz.:  names  like  Ikib-ilu  (cf.  supra  Ya'kub-ilu), 
Ashupi-ilu  (cf.  supra  Yashup-ilu,  p.  95),  Elali  (written 
E-la-ni,  cf.  p.  1 1 5),  Mashkhuru  (for  Mash'uru  ? cf. 
Makhnuzu  on  p.  111),  Nabati  (with  an  emphatic 
dental  sound,  cf.  the  Arabic  names  beginning  with 
Nabti  on  pp.  83  et  seq .),  Gamaru  etc.  And,  what  is 
of  still  greater  importance,  these  names  continue 
to  be  a feature  of  Assyrian  nomenclature  up  to 
the  close  of  the  Assyrian  Empire,  a fact  which  is 
proved  by  the  occurrence  of  such  names  as  Ilu- 
milki  (Eponym  886,  B.C.),  Tsidki-ilu  (Ep.  764  B.C.), 
Abu-rama  (Ep.  677),  Milki-ramu  (Ep.  654  B.C.),  Atar- 


1 Keilinschrift  Bibliothek,  Vol.  IV.  Introduction,  p.  viii. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  143 


ilu  (Ep.  673,  cf.  the  South  Arabian  Watar-il),  Makhdi 
(for  Ma'di  cf.  p.  83 — Ep.  725  B.C.),  Ilu-amar  (in  the 
time  of  Sennacherib,  cf.  Arab.  Abi-amara,  p.  84),  and 
particularly  of  the  numerous  names  compounded 
with  A'f  in  the  sense  of  a male  deity  (pp.  112  et  seq.). 
Mr.  Pinches  has  recently  proved  that  the  element 
A'i  (which  is  always  represented  by  the  symbol  of 
deity)  must  not  be  read  as  “ Malik  ” in  personal 
names,  but  as  equivalent  to  the  Hebraic  Yah  1 (orig- 
inally a word  in  general  use  among  the  Western 
Semites,  but  especially  among  the  Arabs) ; thus  we 
find  Abu-Ai  (Ep.  887  B.C.),  Nindar-A'f  (Ep.  864), 
Ashur-A'f  (Ep.  862  and  651),  Nirgal-A'f  (Ep.  831), 
Samas-A'i  (Ep.  819),  Marduk-Ai  (Ep.  818),  Bel-A'i 
(Ep.  769),  in  addition  to  the  names  Sharru-A'f  (A'i  is 
king)  and  Shadu-Ai  {vide  supra  pp.  108  et  seq .),  with 
which  latter  may  be  compared  the  peculiarly  Assyr- 
ian names  ending  in  Shadua  ( = “my  mountain”) 
mentioned  on  p.  108.  I11  a word,  the  Assyrians, 

(like  the  numerous  Arabs  of  the  Khammu-rabi  dy- 
nasty who  in  time  developed  into  Babylonians)  were 
similarly  of  Arab  blood,  and  like  their  kinsmen  they 
quickly  assimilated  the  Babylonian  traditions,  and 
finally  developed  into  the  warlike  Assyrian  race  with 
which  history  has  made  us  familiar,  though  they 
maintained  their  blood  much  freer  from  admixt- 
ure than  the  Babylonian  Arabs.  For  it  is  a well- 

1 Journal  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Victoria  Institute,  vol.  xxviii. 
(1896),  pp.  11  et  seq.  in  his  essay  on  The  Religious  ideas  of  the  Babylo- 
nians (pp.  1 — 21  cf.  34—46)  (cf.  also  my  “remarks”  on  pp.  34 — 36)  : 
Pinches  also  draws  attention  to  the  highly  interesting  variants  Ya  and 
Yau  for  A'i. 


144 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


known  ethnological  fact,  which,  though  occasionally 
noticed  before,1  has  till  now  never  been  satisfactorily 
explained,  that  the  Assyrian  type  which  we  find  on 
the  royal  monuments  presents  far  purer  Semitic 
features  than  are  to  be  discovered  on  Babylonian 
monuments  of  any  epoch  whatsoever,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  that  of  the  Khammu-rabi  dynasty.2 

The  names  cited  on  the  previous  page,  meaning 
respectively  “ Father  is  Ai  (or  Ya),”  “ Nindar  is  Ai,” 
etc.,  belong  to  the  eponymous  rulers,  that  is,  the 
highest  dignitaries  of  the  Assyrian  Empire,  and  ex- 
amples of  these  extend  from  the  beginning  of  the 
9th  century  B.c.  (a  time  when  there  had  been  as  yet 
no  contact  with  the  kingdom  of  Israel)  down  to 
Assurbanipal.  They  reflect,  without  doubt,  the 
earlier  Arabian  monotheism  of  the  Assyrians,  for 
nearly  all  of  the  deities  borrowed  from  the  Babylo- 
nian Pantheon,  first  of  all  Ashur,  then  Bel,  Samas, 
Marduk,  Nindar,  and  Nirgal,  are  here  identified  with 
the  ancient  Ai  or  Ya.  From  this  it  is  at  once  ap- 
parent that  Jonah’s  mission  to  preach  Jehovah  to 
the  Ninevites,  is  by  no  means  so  absurd  as  the 
modern  “ critics  ” would  have  us  think : he  would 
here  have  found  ready  to  his  hand  a text  for  his 
sermon  not  a whit  less  apposite  than  that  Athenian 
altar  to  “ the  unknown  God,”  which  later  on  supplied 
a theme  to  S.  Paul. 

It  is  to  the  Assyrians,  therefore,  whose  existence 
as  a nation  began  in  the  time  of  the  Khammu-rabi 

1 See  my  History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria , pp.  483  et  seq. 

Cf.  the  representation  of  Khammu-rabi  himself  in  Winckler’s  Allor • 
ient.  Forschungen , p.  197. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  145 

Dynasty,  that  we  must  look  for  the  sole  possible  date 
of  this  last  piece  of  evidence.  The  sole  and  only 
period,  therefore,  in  which  we  can  place  the  memor- 
able association  of  the  history  of  Abraham  with  that 
of  Khammurabi  is  not  the  23rd  century  B.C.,  but  the 
close  of  the  20th  or  beginning  of  the  19th,  in  other 
words  about  1900  B.c.  That  this  association  is  a 
real  one,  I hope  to  prove  more  fully  in  the  following 
pages. 


10 


146 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


CHAPTER  V 

ABRAHAM  AND  KHAMMURABI 

The  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis  is,  in  many 
respects,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  whole  of 
the  Old  Testament,  containing  as  it  does  the  account 
of  that  Elamite  campaign  against  Sodom  and  conse- 
quent liberation  of  Lot,  which  form  an  episode  in 
the  history  of  Abraham.  It  is  true  that  we  can  draw 
no  particular  doctrinal  lesson  from  this  chapter ; it 
conveys  no  special  message  from  Moses,  and  even 
the  magnificent  figure  of  Melchizedek  as  he  comes 
forth  bearing  bread  and  wine  to  Abraham,  is  but  a 
faint  symbol  of  future  spiritual  gifts,  the  true  sig- 
nificance of  which  it  is  impossible  to  understand 
save  in  the  light  of  New  Testament  teaching  (cf. 
Heb.  v.  10).  There  are  of  course  episodes  in  the 
history  of  the  children  of  Israel  of  far  higher  im- 
portance than  that  here  narrated  ; for  even  had  Lot, 
Abraham’s  nephew,  been  left  a prisoner  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy,  the  sacred  story,  grouped  as  it  is 
round  the  person  of  Abraham  and  not  round  that  of 
Lot,  would  have  proceeded  without  a break,  and  no 
one  could  have  blamed  Abraham  had  he  hesitated 
to  set  off  with  his  three  hundred  and  eighteen  slaves 
to  rescue  Lot  and  his  possessions  out  of  the  hands 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  147 


of  a superior  hostile  force.  Nor  can  we  pretend  that 
this  chapter  bears  any  special  message  of  consolation 
to  afflicted  souls,  or  that  it  is  more  edifying  than 
other  passages  in  the  writings  of  the  Old  Covenant. 
No  ; its  real  interest  lies  in  the  fact  that  in  this  chap- 
ter we  obtain  a glimpse  of  the  general  history  of  the 
world  in  the  20th  century  B.C.,  such  as  is  nowhere 
else  vouchsafed  us  in  the  Bible.  In  it  we  catch  sight 
of  a political  background  instinct  with  life  and  move- 
ment, and  full  of  the  deepest  human  interest,  the 
more  important  details  of  which  are  now  being  con- 
firmed and  amplified  in  a most  surprising  manner  by 
modern  research  and  excavations  in  the  territory  of 
Ancient  Babylonia. 

A mighty  despot,  Chedor-la-'omer,1  king  of  Elam, 
a country  lying  to  the  south  of  Babylon,  on  the 
shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  afterwards  known  as  Per- 
sia, appears  on  the  scene.  His  allies  are  Tid'al,2  king 
of  the  Goi  [Goiim],  Amraphel,  king  of  Shin'ar,3  and 
Arioch,  king  of  Ellasar  (verse  9).  In  the  first  verse, 
which  enables  us  to  fix  the  date  of  the  episode,  we 
learn  that  Amraphel  was  king  over  the  region  in 
which  Haran,  Abraham’s  second  adopted  home,  was 
situated  ; next  comes  Arioch,  who  at  that  time  was 
still  in  possession  of  Ur,  Abraham’s  native  place, 
holding  in  addition  the  supremacy  over  Sumer  and 

1 LXX  Chodollogomor,  the  Hebrews  must  have  pronounced  it  Chedor- 
laghomer. 

2 LXX  Thargal ; originally,  however,  as  has  only  been  recently  dis- 
covered, it  was  Tudkhul. 

3 i e. , according  to  Gen.  x.  10  and  xi.  2 et  seq.,  the  country  of  which 
Babylon  was  the  capital. 


148  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Akkad  (i.e.  the  whole  of  Babylonia),  and  lastly 
Chedor-la-'omer  and  Tid'al,  whose  names  stand  out 
prominently  in  the  narrative  of  the  campaign  itself 
(verses  5 — 9).  That  Chedor-la-'omer  was  the  prime 
mover  in  the  matter,  and  the  others  merely  his  allies, 
is  clearly  stated  in  verse  5 (cf.  also  verse  4).  For 
twelve  years  had  the  kings  of  the  Five  Cities  of  the 
Dead  Sea  paid  tribute  to  Chedor-la-'omer,  in  the 
thirteenth  they  rebelled,  and  in  the  fourteenth  there 
followed  the  expedition  against  the  “ Countries  of  the 
West,”  undertaken  in  order  to  bring  the  rebellious 
vassal  kings  to  their  senses.  Chedor-la-'omer  invaded 
Bashan  (the  Rephaim  in  Ashteroth-Karnaim),  Am- 
mon (Zuzim),  Moab  (Emim),  and  Edom  (the  Horites 
in  mount  Se'ir),  one  after  the  other  as  far  as  the  zEla- 
nitic  gulf  (El-Paran);  he  then  retraced  his  steps  to 
En-Mishpat  (“The  Spring  of  Judgment,”  known  as 
Kadesh  Barne'a  in  the  exodus  of  the  Israelites  from 
Egypt  to  Moab),  and  smote  the  Amalekites  and  the 
Amorites  who  dwelt  in  Hazezon-Tamar  (Engedi  on 
the  western  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea).  At  last  the 
kinsfs  of  the  Five  Cities,  whose  domain  evidentlv  in- 
eluded  Edom  and  the  whole  region  east  of  Jordan, 
seem  to  have  rallied,  and  to  have  determined  to  give 
battle  to  Chedor-la-'omer  in  the  open  field.  The 
fight  took  place  in  the  valley  of  Siddim  (a  region  rich 
in  asphalt,  and  afterwards,  owing  to  a convulsion  of 
nature,  invaded  by  the  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea),  and 
resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  allied  princes  of  the  Five 
Cities.  Moreover,  Lot,  Abraham’s  nephew,  who  was 
living  in  Sodom,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors. 
As  soon  as  Abraham  was  informed  of  this,  he  set 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  149 

out,  with  318  of  his  men,  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy, 
now  on  their  homeward  march  towards  Babylonia, 
and  came  up  with  them  near  Dan  on  the  northern 
frontier  of  Palestine.  Falling  on  them  by  night  as 
they  lay  intoxicated  with  victory  and  manifestly 
never  dreaming  of  pursuit,  he  drove  them  in  disor- 
derly flight  as  far  as  the  neighbourhood  of  Damas- 
cus. The  booty  left  behind  by  the  enemy,  together 
with  the  prisoners— among  whom,  of  course,  was  Lot 
— fell  into  the  hands  of  the  pursuers  ; these  latter  in- 
cluded not  only  Abraham’s  own  followers,  but  also 
the  people  of  Mamre’  (Hebron),  ‘Aner,  and  Eshcol, 
his  allies,  whose  suzerain  was  apparently  Melchiz- 
edek,  King  of  Salem,  who  is  mentioned  a little 
lower  down. 

If  we  carefully  examine  the  concluding  verse  of 
the  chapter,  we  shall  find  what  would  seem  to  be 
traces  of  two  different  recensions ; according  to  one 
of  these,  it  would  appear  that  it  was  the  King  of 
Sodom  who  came  out  to  meet  Abraham  as  he  re- 
turned home  victorious  and  laden  with  the  spoil ; 
according  to  the  other,  it  was  Melchizedek  of  Salem, 
as  the  following  parallel  passages  shew : 

16.  And  he  [Abram]  brought  back  all  the  goods 
and  also  brought  again  his  brother  Lot,  and  his 
goods,  and  the  women  also  and  the  people  [the  other 
prisoners]. 


17.  And  the  King  of  Sodom 
went  out  to  meet  him  after  his 
return  from  the  slaughter  of 
Chedorla’omer  and  the  kings 


18.  And  [there  came  out] 
Melchizedek,  King  of  Salem 
[to  meet  him] 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


150 


that  were  with  him  at  the  Eniek 
sharre:  (gloss)  i.e.  the  King’s 
vale.1 


21.  And  the  King  of  Sodom 
said  unto  Abram  ; give  me  the 
persons  and  take  the  goods  to 
thyself. 

22 a.  And  Abram  said  to  the 
King  of  Sodom  : 


23.  I will  not  take  (i.e.  keep) 
a thread  nor  a shoe  - latchet 
nor  aught  that  is  thine,  lest 
thou  shouldest  say,  I have 
made  Abram  rich  : 24.  save 

only  that  which  the  young  men 
have  eaten  and  the  portion  of 
the  men  which  went  with  me  ; 
Aner,  Eshcol  and  Mamre,  let 
them  take  their  portion. 


[and]  brought  forth  bread 
and  wine  ; and  he  was  priest 
of  El  'Elyon  ( = God  most 
High).  19.  and  he  blessed 
him  and  said,  Blessed  be 
Abram  of  El  'Elyon,  possessor 
of  heaven  and  earth  : 20.  and 
blessed  be  El  'Elyon  which 
hath  delivered  thine  enemies 
into  thy  hand.  And  he  gave 
him  ( = offered  him)  a tenth  of 
all  (i.e.  of  the  spoil). 

[Then  said  Melchizedek  to 
Abram  : 


but  Abram  said  to  him] 

22 b.  I have  lifted  up  my  hand 
unto  El  'Elyon,2 3  possessor  of 
heaven  and  earth. 


1 Iimek  Shaveh  in  the  Hebr.  text,  cf.  shaveh  Kiryathaim  in  verse  5 

(the  LXX  reading  is  tavri  in  verse  5,  2a)8w  in  verse  17  ; the  emendation 
of  shaveh  into  sharre  is  an  obvious  one  (r  and  v being  represented  by 
somewhat  similar  characters  in  the  Ancient  Hebrew  script) — cf.  Babyl. 
sharru  = king. 

3 Here  a later  editor  has  inserted  “ Yahveh  ” for  El  'Elyon. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  I 5 I 

In  verse  io  we  are  told  that  “ the  vale  of  Siddim 
was  full  of  slime  pits  [i.e.  the  ground  was  honey- 
combed with  asphalt  quarries],  and  the  kings  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  fled,  and  they  fell  there, 
and  they  that  remained  flew  to  the  mountain  ; ” 
now  since  the  King  of  Sodom  had  fallen  in  the  rout, 
it  was  impossible  that  he  should  have  come  out 
to  meet  Abraham.  Moreover,  the  opening  words  of 
Abraham’s  reply  (verse  22)  possessed  a special  sig- 
nificance for  Melchizedek,  since  he  alone  employs 
the  title  Elyon  ( = Highest),  the  word  used  by 
Abraham  being  rather  Shaddai  (cf.  p.  109).  In  all 
probability  therefore  the  recension  which  represents 
Melchizedek  as  coming  out  to  meet  Abraham  is  the 
earlier  of  the  two.  As  matters  stand  with  the  two 
recensions  intermingled  as  they  are,  the  Melchiz- 
edek episode  rather  destroys  the  coherence  of  the 
other ; we  have  no  right,  however,  to  conclude  from 
this  that  verses  18 — 20  are  a later  interpolation,  since 
verse  22 b.  unmistakably  shows  that  here  the  person 
originally  referred  to  was  Melchizedek  and  not  the 
King  of  Sodom.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  were  to 
omit  verses  18—20,  verse  21  would  follow  on  some- 
what abruptly  after  verse  17  ; in  order  to  make  it 
read  properly  we  should  have  to  supply  some  such 
clause  as  : “ then  in  order  to  express  his  good  will  to 
him,  Abram  offered  him  a share  in  the  booty.”  For 
the  rest,  the  very  fact  that  the  text  has  fallen  into 
confusion1  from  verse  17  onwards — taken  in  con- 


1 In  view  of  the  facts  disclosed  above,  the  question  naturally  arises 
whether  in  the  original  it  was  really  a tenth  (and  not  rather  the  whole  of 


152  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

junction  with  the  presence  of  so  many  obscure  and 
archaic  expressions,  which  it  was  necessary  to  ex- 
plain to  later  generations  by  means  of  glosses — is 
the  best  possible  proof  of  the  very  high  antiquity  of 
this  whole  chapter.  Probably  the  original,  which 
seems  to  have  been  written  in  Babylonian,  was 
rescued  from  the  archives  of  the  pre-Israelitish 
kings  of  Salem,  and  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem. 

It  is  also  important  to  note  that  the  author  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  must  have  been  familiar 
with  a version  in  which  verse  18  contained  a sup- 
plementary clause,  somewhat  to  this  effect : “ who 
had  not  received  the  kingdom  from  his  father  and 
mother,”  a clause  intended  to  give  prominence  to 
the  fact  that  the  office  of  Priest-King  was  elective 
and  not  hereditary.  The  kings  of  Edom  mentioned 
in  Gen.  xxxvi.  31  et  seq. — no  one  of  whom  was  the 
son  of  his  predecessor — furnish  a somewhat  parallel 
instance,  especially  the  second  on  the  list,  Bela’  son 
of  Beor,  who  is  doubtless  identical  with  the  well- 
known  prophet  Balaam  son  of  Beor,  in  Num.  xxii.  5 
et  seq.,  and  xxxi.  8.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  from  the 
apostle’s  metaphorical  comment  on  Melchizedek 
(Hebr.  vii.  1),  that  the  phrase  “ without  father,  with- 
out mother,”  in  Hebr.  vii.  3,  was  not  suggested  by 
Ps.  cx.  4,  “ thou  art  a priest  for  ever  after  the  order 
of  Melchizedek  ” (Heb.  vi.  20),  nor  by  the  phrase 
“ Priest  of  God  Most  High  ” (Heb.  vii.  1),  but  must 

the  booty)  that  was  offered,  also  whether  the  original  wording  has  been 
preserved  in  verse  21  b and  in  verse  24.  But  see  my  explanation  offered 
below  on  p.  157. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  153 


have  appeared  in  the  version  from  which  he  was 
quoting.  We  need  only  compare — 


Quotation  from  Gen.  xiv. 

a)  Melchizedek 

b)  King  of  Salem 

c)  without  father,  without 
mother,  (cf.  v.  i “ Priest  of 
God  most  High.” ) 


Metaphor  : 

= King  of  righteousness  (Hebr. 
vii.  2) 

= King  of  Peace  (Hebr.  vii.  2) 
= without  genealogy,  having 
neither  beginning  of  days  nor 
end  of  life,  but  made  like  unto 
the  Son  of  God,  abideth  a priest 
continually  (Heb.  vii.  3). 


— especially  as  the  words  are  preceded  by  the  fol- 
lowing introduction  (Heb.  vii.  1) : “ This  Melchize- 
dek, king  of  Salem,  priest  of  God  most  High,  who 
met  Abraham  returning  from  the  slaughter  of  the 
kings  and  blessed  him,  to  whom  also  Abraham  di- 
vided a tenth  part  of  all  ” (cf.  v.  4,  where  it  is  still 
more  clearly  stated  that  it  was  “ a tenth  out  of  the 
chief  spoils  ”).  We  are  forced  to  conclude,  therefore, 
either  that  there  existed  in  the  time  of  S.  Paul  a 
version  of  the  Bible  which  contained  in  Gen.  xiv.  18 
the  supplementary  clause,  “ without  father  and 
mother,”  or  that  independent  of  the  Biblical  text 
there  was  an  ancient  oral  tradition  current  among 
the  priesthood  at  Jerusalem  in  which  the  epithet, 
“ without  father  and  without  mother,”  was  applied 
to  the  ancient  office  of  the  Priest-King. 

Indeed  we  find  confirmatory  evidence  of  this  even 
in  inscriptions  of  pre-Mosaic  date,  which  throw  an 
historical  light  of  the  most  striking  character  on  the 
expression  in  question,  as  well  as  on  the  history  of 
the  kingdom  of  Salem  generally  in  primitive  times. 


154 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


In  the  letters  from  King  'Abd-khiba  of  Uru-Salim 
to  the  Pharaoh  Amenothis  (ca.  1400  B.c.)  preserved 
to  us  in  the  Tel  el  Amarna  tablets,  we  find  an  as- 
severation which  occurs  in  nearly  every  one  of  these 
writings  and  which  I give  below  in  parallel  col- 
umns : 

Berlin  No.  102,  lines  9 et 
seq. 

Lo,  in  so  far  as  I am  con- 
cerned. 

It  was  not  my  father  who  in- 
stalled me  in  this  place  nor  my 
mother, 

but  the  arm  of  the  mighty  king 
has  allowed  me  to  enter  into 
my  ancestral  house.1 

and  again  in  a third  letter  B.,  No.  104,  lines  9 et  seq. : 

“ Lo,  I am  no  prefect  {i.e.  no  Egyptian  viceroy), 
but  a “ Friend  ( rukhi — Hebr.  re  eh,  cf.  2.  Sam.  xv. 
3 7)  of  the  king’s,  and  one  who  brings  [voluntary] 
offerings  to  the  king  ( ubil  bilti,  Canaanite  obcl  belet), 
am  I ; it  was  not  my  father,  it  was  not  my  mother, 
but  the  arm  of  the  mighty  king,  that  placed  me  in 
my  ancestral  house.” 

The  expression  “ mighty  king  ” ( sharru  danmi) — a 
title  which,  though  borne  by  Babylonian  and  As- 
syrian monarehs  in  the  context  given  above,  re- 
minds us  very  strongly  of  the  El  'Elyon  of  Melchiz- 
edek — finds  a parallel  in  another  passage  in  Letter 

1 bit  abi-ya , cf.  the  Hebrew  expression  btt-ab  which  has  the  same  gen- 
eral meaning. 


B.,  No.  103,  lines  25  et 
seq. 

Lo  in  regard  to  the  region  of 

this  city  of  Jerusalem 

It  was  not  my  father,  not  my 

mother  who  gave  it  me 

but  the  arm  of  the  mighty  king 

gave  it  to  me. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  155 

No.  104  in  the  Berlin  edition  of  the  Tel-el-Amarna 
texts : 

“ So  long  as  there  is  a single  ship  on  the  sea, 

So  long  does  the  arm  of  the  mighty  king  hold 
in  possession 

The  land  of  Naharim,  Jand  the  land  of  Kapasi, 
Now,  however,  shall  the  Khabiri 2 possess  them- 
selves of  the  Cities  of  the  King  ? 3 

It  is  evident  from  this  that  the  “ mighty  king  ” 
mentioned  in  the  letters  of  'Abd-khiba  must  be  an 
earthly  potentate.  But  in  the  numerous  letters  ad- 
dressed by  Canaanite  princes  to  the  Egyptian  Court 
that  have  come  down  to  us,  although  they  abound 
in  servile  protestations  of  subjection,  we  never  find 
Pharaoh  described  by  this  title.  On  the  contrary, 
Rib-Addi,  governor  of  Gebal,  complains  to  Pharaoh 
that  his  enemies,  the  sons  of  'Abd-Ashirti  [Ashera] 
in  Coele  Syria,  have  taken  his  territory  away  from 
him  and  given  it  to  the  “mighty  king,”  i.e.  in  this 
case  to  the  king  of  the  Hittites  (Berk  No.  76);  for 
in  another  passage  Rib-Addi  describes  the  sons  of 
'Abd-Ashera  as  “ creatures  of  the  king  of  Mitanni, 
of  the  king  of  Kassi  (Babylonia),  and  the  king  of 
Khati,”  and  as  a matter  of  fact  the  Hittite  influence 
was  at  that  time  daily  gaining  ground  in  Syria. 

1 Western  Mesopotamia  and  Northern  Syria,  the  hegemony  over  which 
was  at  that  time  an  object  of  rivalry  between  the  Hittite  Icings  and  the 
kings  of  Mitanni  (a  region  between  the  Euphrates  and  Belikh).  Kapa-s 
is  probably  the  country  on  the  gulf  of  Issos,  called  the  Land  of  Kef-t  in 
the  Egyptian  inscriptions. 

2 Beddin,  from  whom  Kirjath  Arba’  first  received  the  name  of  He- 
bron ; see,  as  to  this,  a future  chapter. 

* i.e.  of  Pharoah.  The  environs  of  Jerusalem  are  here  referred  to. 


156  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Nevertheless,  the  asseveration  of  'Abd-khiba  of 
Jerusalem,  which  he  thrice  repeats  in  his  letters  to 
Pharaoh  quoted  above,  sounds  for  all  the  world  like 
the  echo  of  some  ancient  sacred  formula,  or  of  a 
phrase  that  originally  possessed  a religious  signifi- 
cance, and  receives  just  as  much  light  from  the  facts 
narrated  of  Melchizedek  in  Gen.  xiv.  18  et  seq.,  and 
Heb.  vii.  1 et  seq.,  as  it,  in  its  turn,  throws  on  them. 
To  Pharaoh,  of  course,  the  “mighty  king”  meant 
nothing  more  than  his  rival  the  king  of  the  Hittites  ; 
but  in  Jerusalem  the  original  significance  of  the  words 
“ not  my  father  and  not  my  mother,  but  the  arm  of 
the  mighty  king  ” (i.e.  of  El  'Elyon)  must  still  have 
been  perfectly  familiar.  In  Babylonian  (the  lan- 
guage employed  by  the  kings  of  Jerusalem  when 
addressing  Pharaoh)  El  'Elyon  (the  Most  High  God) 
would  appear  as  belu  asharidu ; the  ideogram  for 
sharru  king,  however,  in  the  bilingual  texts,  also 
stands  for  belu  = Lord,  or  ilu  = God,  and  the  ideo- 
gram for  dannu  — mighty  is  also  used  to  represent 
asharidu.  And,  if  further  proof  were  needed,  it  is 
furnished  by  the  fact  that  in  the  Shuhite  country, 
the  home  of  Bildad  [i.e.  the  Shuhite]  the  friend  of 
Job,  the  war-god,  Nergal,  was  called  not  only  Emu, 
but  also  “ mighty  king  ” (W.  A.  Inser.,  ii.  54,  No.  5,  1. 
65  et  seq.) ; from  this  it  is  evident  that  there  must 
have  been  a Western  Semitic  deity  who  was  known 
by  this  name. 

And  now  to  return  to  our  investigation  in  regard 
to  the  original  text  of  the  closing  episode  narrated 
in  Gen.  xiv.  The  fact  that  the  King  of  Sodom  had, 
as  stated  in  verse  10,  already  perished,  supplies  a 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 57 

clue  to  the  correct  emendation  of  the  text.  I be- 
lieve that  there  are  ample  grounds  for  assuming  that 
the  passage  originally  ran  as  follows : — 

1 7.  “ And  Melchizedek,  the  king  of  Salem,  went  out 
to  meet  him,  after  his  return  from  the  slaughter  of 
Chedorla’omer  and  the  kings  that  were  with  him  at 
the  'emek  sharre,1  (gloss)  the  same  is  the  King’s  vale. 

18.  And  Melchizedek  king  of  Salem  brought  forth 
bread  and  wine  ; and  he  was  Priest  of  God  Most 
High  [and  had  not  inherited  the  kingdom  from  his 
father  or  his  mother2]. 

19.  And  he  blessed  him  and  said,  Blessed  be 
Abram  of  El  'Elyon  possessor  of  heaven  and  earth  : 
(20)  and  blessed  be  El  'Elyon  which  hath  delivered 
thine  enemies  into  thy  hands.  And  he  (Abraham) 
gave  him  [ = offered  him]  a tenth  of  all  (i.e.  of  the 
whole  booty). 

21.  But  Melchizedek  said  unto  Abram  : give  me 
the  persons  and  take  the  goods  to  thyself.  . . . 

I have  lift  up  my  hand  to  El  'Elyon  possessor  of 
heaven  and  earth,  (23)  that  I will  not  take  a thread 
nor  a shoe-latchet,  nor  aught  that  is  thine,  lest  thou 
shouldest  say  thou  hast  enriched  me : (24)  save  only 
that  which  the  young  men  have  eaten  and  the  por- 
tion of  the  men  which  went  with  thee  : 'Aner,  Esh- 
col,  and  Mamre’,  let  them  take  their  portion.” 

Only  the  words  in  italics  have  been  changed.  The 
chief  mistake,  to  which  all  the  others  may  be  traced, 
lies  in  the  insertion  of  the  words  “ king  of  Sodom  ” 

1 Vide  supra,  pp.  90  and  107,  note  i,  and  cf.-  the  Katabanian  divine 
name  'Amin  mentioned  on  p.  48. 

2 As  to  this  restoration  see  what  I have  said  on  pp.  152  e t seq. 


i58 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


instead  of  “ Melchizedek  ” in  verse  17.  The  only 
omission  necessary  is  at  the  beginning  of  verse  22, 
where  the  words,  “ And  Abram  said  to  the  king  of 
Sodom,”  are  inconsistent  with  the  general  sense.  For 
the  invocation  of  El  'Elyon  is  only  rightly  intelligible 
when  placed  in  the  mouth  of  Melchizedek.  That 
Melchizedek  should  have  desired  possession  of  the 
prisoners  is  no  more  than  we  should  expect:  for  after 
the  death  of  the  king  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  he 
must  naturally  have  regarded  himself  as  master  of 
the  Jordan.  Moreover,  it  is  quite  possible  that  some 
of  his  own  people  may  have  been  included  among 
the  prisoners  rescued  by  Abraham.  And,  finally,  in 
regard  to  those  who  had  lent  Abraham  a helping 
hand,  viz.  the  men  of  'Aner,  Eshcol,  and  Mamre’,  we 
can  readily  understand  Melchizedek’s  anxiety  that 
they  should  receive  their  share,  since  they  were  his 
own  subjects;  Hebron  is,  indeed,  a natural  annex  of 
Jerusalem.  My  emendation,  which  leaves  the  exist- 
ing text  practically  untouched,  may  therefore  be 
allowed  to  speak  for  itself.  The  Melchizedek  inci- 
dent has  now,  for  the  first  time,  been  shown  to  form 
an  integral  part  of  the  whole  chapter  in  which  it 
occurs ; nay,  more,  it  supplies  the  raison  d'etre  for 
the  introduction  of  the  narrative  of  the  military  ex- 
pedition which  precedes  it,  and  which  we  are  now 
about  to  examine  more  closely  ; the  suggestion  that 
we  owe  the  narrative  to  a desire  to  invest  Abraham 
with  a halo  of  military  glory  is  absolutely  ground- 
less. 

But  are  the  events  narrated  in  Gen.  xiv.  actual 
historical  facts  ? Is  it  conceivable  that  at  this  early 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 59 

date,  an  Elamite  king  not  only  exercised  supremacy 
over  the  whole  of  Babylon  but  even  penetrated  as  far 
as  the  Sinaitic  peninsular  in  his  lust  for  conquest  ? 
Or  ought  we,  as  some  would  have  us  believe,  to  re- 
gard the  whole  matter  as  originally  nothing  more 
than  the  narrative  of  some  predatory  raid  against 
Canaan  by  a party  of  Beduin  Arabs,  to  which  legend 
had  tacked  on  the  names  of  Lot  and  Abraham,  the 
whole  story  being  afterwards  elaborated  by  some 
later  writer  into  the  shape  it  now  presents  in  Gen. 
xiv.  ? 

As  a matter  of  fact,  a distinguished  Orientalist 
long  ago  declared  this  chapter  to  be  a fantastic 
grouping  together  of  names,  which  either  belonged 
to  some  remote  period,  or  were  expressly  invented 
for  the  occasion,  and  since  that  time  it  has  become 
the  fashion  among  the  “ higher  critics  ” of  the  Old 
Testament  to  echo  this  view.  Ever  since  1869, 
when  Theodor  Noldeke  attempted  to  prove  the 
xivth  chapter  of  Genesis  to  be  the  biased  invention 
of  a later — though  possibly  pre-exilic— date,1  mod- 
ern “critics”  have  unhesitatingly  endorsed  his  ver- 
dict. Scholars  began  afterwards  to  study  the  cune- 
iform texts  and  shewed  that  king  Arioch  of  Ellasar 
was  identical  with  king  Eri-Aku(G.  Smith,  1871)  of 
Larsa  (H.  Rawlinson) ; they  next  pointed  out  that 
there  was  an  Elamite  goddess  called  Lagamar  or 
Lagamal  (G.  Smith),  and  that  there  were  two  ancient 
Elamite  kings,  one  named  Kudur-Mabug,  father  of 
the  aforesaid  Eri  - Aku,  and  the  other  Kudur-nan- 


Untcrsuckungen  zur  Kritik  des  alien  Tesiamentcs  (1869), 


l60  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

khundi  (G.  Smith).  What  did  the  modern  critics  do 
in  the  face  of  this  evidence — since  to  admit  the  pres- 
ence of  such  an  ancient  tradition  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment would  be  virtually  equivalent  to  cutting  the 
ground  away  from  beneath  their  own  feet?  They 
could  not,  of  course,  deny  that  Kudur  - Lagamar 
(Chedorla’omer  in  Gen.  xiv.)  is  a genuine  Elamite 
name,  or  that  the  supremacy  of  the  Elamites  in 
Syria  (including  Palestine)  is  proved  by  one  of 
Kudur- Mabug’s  inscriptions  — though  the  reading 
Eri-Aku,  as  the  name  of  a son  of  Kudur-Mabug,  was 
at  one  time,  though  wrongly,  disputed.1  They  were 
therefore  obliged — since  there  seemed  no  other  way 
out  of  the  difficulty — to  fall  back  again  on  the  theory 
of  a post-exilic  forgery,  and  to  suggest  that,  like  a 
nineteenth  century  novelist  in  search  of  “local 
colour,”  the  Jewish  writer  must  have  gone  to  the 
Babylonian  priests  for  his  antiquarian  details.  “ It 
would  seem,  therefore”  — I quote  Meyer’s  own 
words  from  the  first  volume  of  his  History  of  Antiq- 
uity (Stuttgart,  1884) — “ that  the  Jew  who  inserted 
the  account  (Gen.  xiv.),  o?ie  of  the  latest  portions  of 


1 By  many  it  was  regarded  as  nothing  more  than  an  ingenious  conject- 
ure, and  was  occisionally  quoted  as  such,  but  its  accuracy  was  ques- 
tioned by  Assyriologists  (such  as  Fr.  Delitzsch  in  his  little  book  on  the 
Cossaeans,  which  appeared  in  1883),  the  result  being  that  the  identifica- 
tion came  to  be  discredited  by  theologians  and  histonans  alike:  the 
present  writer  stood  alone  in  his  disregard  of  the  doubts  cast  on  this 
theory,  and  thanks  to  a mass  of  fresh  evidence  which  now  no  longer 
admits  of  question,  he  has  been  able  to  establish  both  the  correctness 
of  the  reading  Iri-Aku  and  the  identity  of  the  bearer  of  this  name  with 
Arioch.  (Cf.  Semi  ten  vol.  1,  and  more  fully,  History  of  Bab.  and  Ass. 
PP-  357—74.) 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  l6l 


the  whole  Pentateuch ,*  in  its  present  position,  must 
have  obtained  in  Babylon  exact  information  in  re- 
gard to  the  early  history  of  the  country,  and,  for 
some  reason  which  we  are  unable  to  fathom,  mixes 
up  Abraham  with  the  history  of  Kudur-Lagamar ; in 
other  respects  his  version  of  the  story  accords  per- 
fectly with  the  absolutely  unhistorical 1 views  held  by 
the  Jews  in  regard  to  primitive  ages.” 

By  adopting  this  attitude,  it  was  no  longer  neces- 
sary for  modern  critics  to  deny  that  the  events  re- 
lated in  Gen.  xiv.  rest  on  an  actual  basis  of  historic 
fact;  they  had  now  to  admit,  whether  they  liked  it 
or  not,  that  the  names  of  the  hostile  kings  especially 
were  not  pure  inventions.  But  that  the  history  of 
Abraham,  whom  they  regard  as  not  merely  a legen- 
dary but  rather  a purely  mythical  being,  should  con- 
tain in  its  midst  an  ancient  historical  tradition,  was 
something  which  they  could  not  accept ; for  in  that 
case  the  whole  theory,  according  to  which  every- 
thing before  the  time  of  David  is  wrapped  in  the 
mist  of  legend,  would  begin  to  totter  on  its  base, 
and  the  account  drawn  up  by  Moses  would  begin  to 
appear  in  another  and  far  more  authentic  light ; in 
a word,  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  untrustworthiness 
of  the  earlier  history  of  Israel-— so  dear  to  the  hearts 
of  modern  critics  of  the  Pentateuch — would  sudden- 
ly find  itself  attacked  in  a vital  part.  In  order, 
therefore,  to  save  this  master  principle  from  ruin, 
there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  adopt  the  above  op- 
portunist expedient,  the  inherent  absurdity  of  which 

1 The  words  printed  in  italics  occur  at  the  beginning,  and  the  other 
part  at  the  end,  of  paragraph  136  in  Meyer’s  book, 
it 


1 62 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


must,  one  would  think,  be  patent  to  every  unpreju- 
diced observer.  This  merely  serves  to  show  us 
once  again  how  true  it  is  that  once  the  critic  refuses 
to  be  convinced  by  the  sheer  force  of  facts  because 
to  do  so  would  involve  the  sacrifice  of  a carefully 
elaborated  theory,  he  is  apt,  like  a drowning  man, 
to  catch  at  the  various  straws,  provided  they  seem 
to  promise  him  a way  out  of  his  difficulties.  For  it 
is  absolutely  inconceivable  that  a Jew  of  the  post- 
exilic  period  should  have  been  the  first  to  derive 
from  the  sacred  Babylonian  records  such  exact  in- 
formation in  regard  to  an  incident  in  the  history  of 
the  earliest  kings  of  Babylon1 — an  incident,  more- 
over, in  which  the  king  of  Babylon  played  a passive 
and  comparatively  subordinate  part.  Besides,  even 
assuming  Gen.  xiv.  to  be  nothing  more  than  a “ very 
late  narrative  of  a Midrash  character  ” belonging  to 
post-exilic  times,  how  came  its  author  (who,  by  the 
way,  may  be  congratulated  on  the  production  of 
such  a masterpiece  as  this  chapter)  to  introduce  into 
it  a whole  host  of  ancient  phrases  and  names,  to 
which  he  himself  is  obliged  to  add  explanatory 
glosses  in  order  that  they  may  be  better  understood  ? 
It  is  merely  necessary  to  glance  at  verses  2 and  8, 
“king  of  Bela  [the  same  is  Zoar] ; ” verse  3,  “the 
vale  of  Siddim,  [the  same  is  the  (later)  Salt  Sea]  ; ” 
verse  7,  “ En-Mishpat  [the  same  is  Kadesh]  ; ” verse 
14,  “ his  trained  men,  i.e.  born  in  his  house ; ” and  verse 
17,  “in  the  vale  of  Sharre  (vide  supra,  p.  150,  note) 

1 It  must  be  remembered  that  the  only  continu  ms  tradition  we  have 
refers  to  the  kings  of  Babylon  and  not  to  those  of  Ur,  Nisin  and  Larsa. 
Cf.  for  instance  the  List  of  Kings. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 63 

[that  is  the  King’s  Vale].”  Are  we  to  assume  that 
he  did  this  intentionally  in  order  to  invest  his  story 
with  an  air  of  higher  antiquity  ? In  that  case,  all 
we  can  say  is,  that  no  similar  example  of  literary 
finesse  can  be  found  throughout  the  whole  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  that  if  he  was  capable  of  such 
subtlety  in  this  one  instance,  it  is  strange  that  he 
should  have  limited  himself  to  dressing  up  this  one 
scene  from  the  life  of  Abraham  in  Canaan,  in  finery 
borrowed  from  the  Ancient  Babylonian  archives, 
when  there  were  so  many  other  episodes,  both  in 
the  story  of  Abraham  and  elsewhere  in  the  primitive 
history  of  the  Israelites,  which  would  have  readily 
lent  themselves  to  similar  adornment  and  elabora- 
tion. To  take  only  a few  instances,  we  have  the  mi- 
gration of  Abraham  from  his  original  home  in  Ur 
(Gen.  xi.  28  and  31),  the  building  of  the  tower  of 
Babel  (Gen.  xi.  1 — 9),  the  account  of  Nimrod  (Gen. 
x.  8 — 12),  of  which  there  is  not  a single  one  that 
would  not  have  amply  repaid  him  for  the  expendi- 
ture of  a few  explanatory  additions  and  interpola- 
tions taken  from  Babylonian  history  and  mythology. 
Besides,  if  Meyer’s  view  be  the  correct  one,  we  may 
rest  assured  that  the  editor  of  Gen.  xiv.  would  not 
have  refrained  from  pointing  a moral,  by  showing 
that  the  insolence  of  the  kings  of  Elam  and  Larsa 
drew  down  upon  them  a divine  Judgment,  in  that 
they  were  soon  afterwards  overthrown  by  the  hand 
of  Amraphel.  Yet  he  does  none  of  these  things. 
Such  an  enrichment  of  the  stock  of  Ancient  He- 
brew history  and  tradition,  direct  from  cuneiform 
sources,  in  exilic  or  post-exilic  times,  as  is  here  pred- 


164  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

icated  by  Meyer,  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen,  etc.,  is 
open  to  the  gravest  suspicion  from  the  fact  of  its 
being  an  isolated  instance,  not  to  speak  of  its  being 
otherwise  unprecedented  and  inconceivable.  More- 
over, if  we  accepted  their  theory,  we  should  expect 
to  find  the  names  of  the  kings  given  in  the  Hebrew 
texts  in  a different  form,  and  one  more  in  harmony 
with  the  text  of  the  later  Babylonian  tradition : the 
chronographers  of  Nabonidus’  time  certainly  wrote 
nothing  but  “ Khammu-rabi  ” and  the  form  of  the 
name  “ Chedor-la’omer,”  even  in  the  Epos  current 
in  the  time  of  the  Achaemenides  (of  which  we  shall 
hear  more  anon),  was  Kudur-dugmal  or  Kudur-laga- 
mal,  while  the  contemporary  texts  give  Ammurabi 
as  well  as  Khammu-rabi,  and  the  name  of  the  Elam- 
ite king  as  Kudur-luggamar  instead  of  Kudur-lug- 
gamal,  i.e.  with  the  earlier  r in  place  of  the  later  /. 

The  reader  will  now  understand  why  it  is  that 
this  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis  has  come  to  be 
a sort  of  shibboleth  for  the  two  leading  schools  of 
Old  Testament  critics.  The  purely  literary  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  the  so-called  “ Priestly  Code  ” is 
the  oldest  or  latest  of  the  sources  of  the  Pentateuch, 
is,  by  comparison,  of  merely  minor  importance.  It 
is  the  question  of  the  nature  of  history  itself  which 
divides  the  students  of  the  Old  Testament  into  two 
irreconcilable  factions.  The  authenticity  of  a nar- 
rative such  as  that  under  consideration  is,  however, 
in  itself,  an  unanswerable  criticism  upon  the  views 
which  are  now  in  fashion  with  regard  to  the  credi- 
bility of  the  ancient  Hebrew  tradition.  The  subject 
matter  of  the  present  chapter  will,  therefore,  for 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 65 

ever  remain  a stumbling-block  in  the  path  of  those 
who  refuse  to  recognize  a single  line  of  the  Penta- 
teuch — not  even  the  Decalogue  and  the  Blessing 
(Deut.  xxx.) — to  be  genuine,  and,  try  how  they  may 
to  remove  it,  it  will  continue  to  defy  their  persistent 
efforts. 

Having  now  sufficiently  explained  the  true  state 
of  this  question,  I propose  in  the  following  pages — 
as  a kind  of  supplement  to  what  I have  already  said 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  and  to  the  outlines 
sketched  on  pp.  43  et  seq.~— to  institute  a closer  com- 
parison between  the  historical  scene  which  we  find 
depicted  in  Gen.  xiv.  and  the  evidence  of  the  monu- 
ments. The  monuments  in  question  may  be  divided 
into  two  classes.  First,  the  contemporary  records 
dating  from  the  time  of  Abraham  ; and  secondly, 
the  later  Babylonian  tradition,  which  is  not  alto- 
gether free  from  a tinge  of  poetic  fancy  : the  monu- 
ments of  the  first  class  consist  of  the  Ancient  Baby- 
lonian inscriptions  of  Kings  discovered  at  Ur  and 
Larsa,  of  letters,  and  lastly  of  the  date-formulae  of 
the  contract  tablets — documents  which  yield  a fruit- 
ful harvest  of  knowledge  in  regard  to  the  personal 
names  and  legal  relations  of  the  people. 

I shall  begin  with  examples  of  ex  voto  offerings  of 
the  kings  of  Larsa,  and  shall,  first  of  all,  allow  one 
or  two  of  them  to  speak  for  themselves,  as  I feel 
convinced  that  the  reader  will  be  interested  to  learn 
something  of  the  actual  wording  of  these  important 
monuments,  now  fortunately  rescued  from  the  accu- 
mulated debris  of  four  thousand  years  which  had 
covered  them  in  Southern  Babylonia.  They  are 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


1 66 

written  in  the  primitive  Sumerian  language,  an 
idiom  somewhat  akin  to  modern  Turkish,  which  was 
used  in  royal  inscriptions  right  down  to  the  Kassite 
period  and  even  later,  but  had  long  before  ceased 
to  be  employed  colloquially. 

An  ex  voto  now  preserved  in  the  Louvre  runs  as 
follows: — “To  the  goddess  Ishtar,  the  lady  of  the 
mountain the  daughter  of  Sin  to  their  mis- 

tress, have  Kudur-Mabug,  the  prince  ( adda  = malik) 
of  Yamutbal,  the  son  of  Simtishilkhak,  and  Ri-Aku, 
his  son,  the  exalted  shepherd  of  Nippur,1  the  guar- 
dian of  Ur,  king  of  Larsa,  king  of  Ki-Ingi  (Sumer) 
and  of  Akkad,  built  the  temple  of  Mi-ur-urra,  her 
favourite  holy  place,  for  the  prolongation  of  their 
lives,  and  have  made  high  its  summit  and  raised  it 
up  like  a mountain.” 

A second  inscription  discovered  at  Ur  (W.  A.  I.,  i. 
2,  No.  3)  runs  as  follows: — “To  the  God  Uru-ki  (the 
Moon-god  of  Ur)  his  king,  has  Kudur-Mabug,  the 
prince  of  Martu  (i.e.  of  the  “countries  of  the  West,” 
Palestine)  the  son  of  Simtishilkhak,  on  the  day  in 
which  the  god  Uru-ki  hearkened  unto  his  prayer, 
built  the  temple  of  Nunmagh  for  the  preservation 
of  his  life  and  the  life  of  Iri-Aku,  his  son,  the  king  of 
Larsa.” 

In  another  similar  inscription  Iri  Aku  comes  for- 
ward to  speak  for  himself,  but  mentions  his  father 
Kudur-Mabug  as  well.  On  the  other  hand  the 
following  inscription  (W.  A.  I.,  i.  3,  No.  10)  must 
evidently  have  been  indicted  after  the  death  of 

1 Lately  identified  with  Nuffar  [Niffer]  by  Peters,  Hilprecht  and 
Haynes. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 67 


Kudur-Mabug,  since,  contrary  to  the  usual  practice 
elsewhere,  he  is  not  named : 

“To  the  god  Nin-Shagh his  king,  does  Iri- 

Aku,  the  shepherd  of  the  possession  (or  income)  of 
Nippur,  who  fulfils  the  oracle  of  the  sacred  tree  of 
Eridu,  the  guardian  of  Ur  (and)  of  the  temple  of 
Uddaim-tigga,  king  of  Larsa,  king  of  Sumer  and 
Akkad,  consecrate  this;  on  the  day  in  which  Anu, 
Bel,  and  Ea,  the  great  gods,  gave  the  ancient  Uruk 
(Erech)  into  my  hand,  have  I built  to  the  god  Nin- 
shagh,  my  king,  with  good  and  loyal  intent,  the 
Temple  of  A- agga-summu,  the  abode  of  his  pleas- 
ure, for  the  preservation  of  my  life.” 

This  presupposes  the  conquest  of  Erech,  which  not 
long  before  had  been  the  capital  of  an  independent 
dynasty,  just  as  the  references  to  Nippur  in  this  in- 
scription, and  in  the  one  first  translated  on  the  pre- 
ceding page,  presupposes  the  occupation  of  Nisin, 
a city  whose  fortunes  were  closely  bound  up  with 
those  of  Nippur.  The  taking  of  Nisin  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  contract  tablets  of  the  time  of  Ri- 
Aku,  found  at  Tel  Sifr  (near  Larsa),  many  of  which 
are  dated  from  this  event.  One  of  these  date-formu- 
lae is  worded  thus,  “in  the  year  in  which  he  with 
the  exalted  help  of  Anu,  Bel  and  Ea,  conquered 
Nisin,  the  city  of  the  kingdom,”  and  other  tablets  of 
the  time  of  Ri-Aku  are  dated  from  the  5th,  6th,  7th, 
8th,  13th,  1 8th,  and  28th  year  after  the  taking  of 
Nisin.  Now  in  the  time  of  Sinmuballit,  the  prede- 
cessor of  Khammu-rabi,  we  find  the  following  dated 
example  (Meissner  No.  32) : “ in  the  year  in  which 
he  (i.e.  Sinmuballit)  conquered  Nisin.”  From  this  it 


1 68  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

would  seem  that  the  struggle  for  the  ancient  royal 
city  of  Nisin  (cf.  p.  36)  had  gone  on  between  Sinmu- 
bal lit  and  the  kings  of  Larsa,  until  Ri-Aku  succeeded 
in  obtaining  undisputed  possession  of  it,  and  held  it 
for  at  least  twenty-eight  years — in  fact,  until  he  was 
himself  dethroned  by  Kharnmu-rabi.  It  is  also  obvi- 
ous that  Ri-Aku  must  have  enjoyed  a very  long  reign 
— probably,  over  thirty  years.  This  same  capture  of 
Nisin  is,  moreover,  mentioned  in  yet  another  dated 
example,  which  reads : “ in  the  year  in  which  Ri- 
Agum,  the  king,  and  the  prince  of  Yamutbalu  [with] 
the  tribes  {?iin  - ki  - sulub  - gar , Semitic,  ummandti)  of 
Ishnunna  (i.e.  Ashnunnak,  on  the  Elamite  frontier) 

overthrew  Nisin  and  he ” The  rest  of  the 

inscription  is  unfortunately  illegible. 

In  this  last  example  the  name  of  the  king  is  writ- 
ten quite  phonetically  Ri-im-A-gam-um  which  can 
only  be  read  as  Ri-Agu  1 (Agum  or  Agu  is  a sobri- 
quet of  the  Moon-god,  as  is  also  the  more  strongly 
articulated  form  Aku).  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
inscriptions  previously  translated,  the  name  is  writ- 
ten either  as  Irim-Aku  (pronounced  Iri-Aku)  or  Ri- 


1 The  symbol  gam  also  possesses,  it  is  true,  the  phonetic  value  gu, 
as  for  instance  in  the  word  Shangumakhu , which  must  not  be  read  as 
Shangammakhu.  A certain  hypercritical  scholar,  one  of  whose  pet 
theories  is  that  “ the  Biblical  Arioch  has  not  yet  been  identified,”  re- 
cently proposed  that  we  should  read  Ri-im-A-gam-um  as  Ri-im-A-gam- 
mis  ( Zeitschrift  der  Deutsch.  Morg.  Gesellsch.,  vol.  1.  p.  25 note  2), 
which  though  in  itself  possible  enough,  must,  to  say  the  very  least  of  it, 
be  described  as  absolutely  unnecessary  ; for  even  supposing  him  to  be 
right  on  this  point,  the  proposed  rendering  would  be  nothing  more  than 
an  Elamite  amplification  of  the  divine  name  agu  into  agavis , a parallel 
to  which  is  found  in  the  name  Ur-Ziguruvas  (for  Ur-Zigur). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  169 

im-Aku  (pronounced  Ri-Aku).  That  we  have  in 
these  two  latter  cases  a parallel  to  the  Semitic 
rendering  Arad-Sin  (or  Rim-Sin)  is  proved  both 
by  the  form  Ri-Agu  and  also  by  the  Hebraic 
transliteration  Arioch ; moreover,  this  is  abso- 
lutely confirmed  by  certain  Epic  fragments  which 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  discuss  hereafter,  in 
which  the  name  is  written  Iri-E-a-ku  and  Iri-E-ku-a. 
The  name  means  “Servant  of  the  Moon -god.” 
Some  writers  have  suggested  that  Kudur-Mabug 
had  two  sons,  one  named  Arad  - Sin,  the  other 
Rim-Sin.  But  seeing  that  ardu  — servant,  is  merely 
a Semitic  translation  of  the  Sumerian  word  irim , 
rim,  (or  iri,  ri)  = servant,  we  need  not  take  this  con- 
jecture seriously. 

Now,  what  are  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from 
the  texts  quoted  above  ? Firstly,  that  the  king  who 
is  named  in  each  one  of  them,  Iri-aku  or  Ri-Aku, 
resided  at  Larsa,  a city  of  Southern  Babylonia,  sacred 
to  the  Sun-god  ; secondly,  that  he  also  possessed  the 
cities  of  Ur,  Eridu,  Nisin,  Nippur  and  last  of  all 
Uruk  also,  while  Akkad  and  Babylon  (in  Northern 
Babylonia)  seem  to  have  merely  paid  tribute  to  him. 
And  thirdly — the  most  important  fact  of  all  in  so  far 
as  Gen.  xiv.  is  concerned — that  his  father  and  grand- 
father, as  a single  glance  at  their  names  will  show, 
were  Elamites ; the  fact  that  Kudur-Mabug1  is  de- 
scribed as  “ prince  of  Yamutbal  ” affords  additional 


1 The  name  means  “ Servant  (Elamitic  Kudur)  of  the  god  Mahug  ” 
(or  Mavuk,  cf.  the  Elamite  personal  name  Mauk-titi ; see  my  Assyrio- 
logical  Arotes , § 20). 


170  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

proof  of  his  Elamite  origin.  For  Yamutbal  is  de- 
rived from  the  Kassite  word  ia  = “ land  ” and  Muta- 
bil, the  name  of  a Semitic  viceroy  of  Dur-ili  on  the 
Elamite  frontier  who  flourished  long  before  the  time 
of  Eri-Aku  ; this  Mutabil  had,  as  he  informs  us  in 
an  inscription,  subdued  and  conquered  Anshan  (i.e. 
Northern  Elam),  with  the  result  that  for  a long  time 
afterwards  the  Babylonian  name  for  a part  of  Elam 
was  simply  “ the  land  of  Mutabil,”  abbreviated  to 
“ Mutbal.”  Moreover,  in  the  Babylonian  geographi- 
cal lists  Yamutbalu  is  explained  as  the  “fore-part 
of  Elam  ” (W.  A.  I.,  v.,  16,  20),  so  that  even  should 
my  proposed  explanation  of  the  name  of  Yamutbal 
prove  to  be  incorrect,  we  should  still  have  evidence 
to  show  that  this  region  formed  part  of  the  Elamite 
territory. 

But  whereas  in  the  first  inscription  Kudur-Mabug 
is  described  as  “prince  of  Yamutbal,”  in  the  second 
he  bears  the  title  “ prince  of  Martu,”  which,  as  later 
usage  proves,  was  equivalent  to  “ prince  of  the 
West,”  and  which,  for  this  reason,  many  Assyriolo- 
gists  take  to  be  synonymous  with  Yamutbal  (i.e. 
in  the  present  instance  Western  Elam).  But  Martu, 
in  all  the  Ancient  Babylonian  historical  records,  is 
simply  another  name  for  Palestine  (including  Coele- 
Syria),  being  an  abbreviation  of  Amartu  = the  land 
of  the  Amorites;  since  the  Babylonian  term  Mar- 
tu was  the  same  as  “ countries  of  the  West ,”  this 
word  martu  gradually  came  to  be  used  occasion- 
ally in  the  general  sense  of  “West,”  and  finally  be- 
came a fixed  ideogram  for  amurrd,  the  ordinary 
Semitic-Babylonian  expression  for  “ West,”  a word 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  I/I 

which  originally  meant  “ Amoritish.” 1 The  title 
“ prince  of  Martu,”  therefore,  necessarily  implies 
that  Kudur-Mabug  had  extended  his  military  opera- 
tions as  far  as  Palestine  and  had  reduced  it  to  sub- 
mission, or  rather  that  he  regarded  the  supremacy 
previously  exercised  by  the  later  kings  of  Ur  as  his 
inheritance,  and  duly  annexed  it.  If  we  couple  this 
fact  with  the  obvious  identity  of  Arioch  of  Ellasar 
with  Eri-Aku  of  Larsa,  we  obtain  another  striking 
instance  of  the  way  in  which  the  Bible  narrative  is 
corroborated  by  facts  revealed  in  the  inscriptions. 
In  both  one  and  other  we  find  an  Elamite  hegemony 
over  Canaan  in  the  time  of  Arioch,  in  both  one  and 
other  there  is  the  closest  possible  connection  be- 
tween this  South  Babylonian  potentate  and  Elam, 
and  lastly  we  find  in  both  the  same  initial  element 
(Kudur-)  of  the  name  of  an  Elamite  prince.  The 
only  link  still  wanting  to  complete  the  chain  of  evi- 
dence™ the  connection  between  Eri-Aku  (Arioch) 
and  Khammu-rabi  (Amraphel)  will  be  dealt  with 
later  on-™ is  the  discovery  of  some  reference  to 
Chedor-la’omer  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions.  Up 
to  the  present,  we  have  only  succeeded  in  proving 
the  individual  elements  of  his  name  to  be  of  Elamite 
origin— Kudur  occurring  in  the  name  Kudur-Mabug 

1 Cf.  Hebr.  Emori,  patronymic  for  the  obsolete  Amoreth  = Martu.  I 
have  proved  conclusively  (Assyria logical  Notes  § 13  ; cf.  also  Zeit- 
schrift  D.  M.  G.  vol.  xlix.  p.  524)  that  the  correct  reading  is  not  akharrli, 
but  invariably  atnurrll.  Sayce’s  conjecture  that  the  Canaanite  word 
Emortth  (= Martu  postulated  by  me)  may  be  traced  in  such  expressions 
as  elSn  Moreh  (Gen.  xii.  6),  alone  Moreh  (Deut.  xi.  30)  and  gib ’at  ha* 
Moreh  (Judges  vii.  1),  appears  tome  well  worth  considering. 


172  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

of  the  inscriptions,  and  Lagamar  as  the  title  of  an 
Elamite  goddess. 

Even  this  missing  link  has  been  recently  supplied 
by  the  sensational  discovery  made  by  the  Dominican 
Father,  Fr.-V.  Scheil,  in  the  shape  of  an  autograph 
letter  from  Khammu-rabi  addressed  to  a certain 
Sin-idinam  (probably  a grandson  of  the  celebrated 
king  Sin-idinam  of  Larsa).  Of  scarcely  less  impor- 
tance than  this  document  are  the  lyrical  fragments 
of  a later  epoch  which  refer  to  the  devastation  of 
North  Babylonia  by  Chedor-la’omer,  the  discovery 
of  which,  as  of  so  many  other  important  documents, 
we  owe  to  the  industry  of  Mr.  Pinches;  it  is  only 
within  the  last  few  years  that  we  have  been  made 
aware  of  their  existence,  Mr.  Pinches  having  first 
communicated  them  to  the  Geneva  Congress  of 
Orientalists  in  September  1894. 

Father  Scheil  made  the  first  announcement  of  his 
discovery  in  October  1896,  in  the  fifth  volume  of 
the  Revue  Biblique  (pp.  600  et  seq.),  a periodical  com- 
piled in  Jerusalem  by  the  Dominican  Father  M.-J. 
Lagrange,  and  published  in  Paris,  in  a paper  entitled 
Chodorlahomor  dans  les  inscriptions  Chaldeennes.  At 
almost  the  same  date  (the  middle  of  September 
1896)  Father  Scheil  wrote  from  Constantinople  to 
my  friend  Hilprecht,  who  was  staying  at  the  time 
not  far  from  Munich,  and  shortly  afterward  to  me 
also,  enclosing  a revised  transcription  of  the  clay 
tablet  which  had  appeared  in  the  Revue  Biblique. 
In  view  of  its  great  importance  I here  append, 
not  only  a literal  translation  (w'hich  differs  in  some 
respects  from  that  supplied  by  Father  Scheil), 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1/3 

but  a transliteration  of  the  Babylonian  original  as 
well : 

A-na  Sin-i-din-nam 
ki-bi-ma 

um-ma  Kha-am-mu-ra-bi-ma 
i-la-a-tim  sha  E-mu-ut-ba-lim 
(5)  it-li-ti-ka  (in  Scheil  two  words,  id  li-ti-ka) 
um  (-um)  sha  Ku-dur  ^-nu-ukh  2-ga-mar 
u-sha-al-la-ma-ak-ku 3 
i-nu-raa  iz-za  ila  ba-ni-ik-ku 
i-na  tsab-im  sha  ga-ti-ka 
(10)  tsab-am  lu-pu-ut-ma 
i-la-a-tim 

a-na  shu-ub-ti-shi-na 
li-sha-al-li-mu 

Before  giving  the  translation  of  the  above  I should 
like  to  point  out  that  the  name  of  the  Elamite  king 
may  be  read  either  as  Kudur-nuggamar  or  as  Kudur- 
luggamar.  At  the  time  in  question  the  symbol  ?ii, 
for  instance,  was  also  equivalent  to  li.  I need 
scarcely  point  out  that  the  symbol  ukh  when  fol- 
lowed, as  in  this  case,  by  ga , must  be  pronounced 
ug ; lakh  = to  glitter  (Sumerian  lag),  for  instance,  is 
followed  not  by  kha  but  by  ga  and  must  therefore 
be  pronounced  lagga  instead  of  lagha.  The  Baby- 
lonians of  Khammu-rabi’s  time  would  seem  to  have 
pronounced  the  divine  appellation  Lagamar  (thus  in 
the  ancient  in  Elamite  inscriptions,  eg.  Lagamarivi 

1 Symbol  tur  (Ideogram  for  “ small  ” or  “ son  ”). 

2 Symbol  ukh  — imtu  or  r{Uu  (Ideogr.  for  Upi>  Opis). 

8 Symbol  ku%  with  emphatic  k sound  (cf .passim  in  the  suffix  of  the  2nd 
person  singular,  in  the  Ancient  Babylonian  correspondence). 


174 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


mishirmana  sarrakh ) with  a surd  / naturally  fol- 
lowed by  a modified  a , a sound  which  they  repro- 
duced in  writing  by  Luggamar  (cf.  LXX,  Aoyopop). 

Father  Scheil  gives  the  following  translation  of 
this  clay  tablet,  which,  according  to  his  account, 
came  originally  from  Larsa:  “To  Sin-idinnam  from 
Khammu-rabi : the  goddesses  of  the  land  of  Emutbal, 
I have  given  them  to  thee  as  a reward  for  thy  val- 
our on  the  day  of  the  defeat  of  Kodor-lahomor.  Be- 
cause the  god,  thy  creator,  is  angered  thereat,  there- 
fore destroy  with  the  troops  which  are  in  thy  hand 
their  people,  and  may  the  goddesses  remain  unin- 
jured in  their  holy  places.”  He  also  adds  the  fol- 
lowing explanation  of  the  historical  incident  to  which 
it  refers:  “ There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Sin-iddinam 
(whom  Scheil  identifies  with  the  well-known  king 
of  Larsa)  had  been  restored  to  power  by  Khammu- 
rabi,  after  he  (Khammu-rabi)  had  vanquished  and 
dethroned  the  prince  of  Emutbal  ( = Yamutbal)and 
Rim-Sin  ( — Eri-Aku).”  Moreover,  Scheil  considers 
the  prince  of  Emutbal  mentioned  in  the  contract 
tablets  of  Tel  Sifr  to  be  identical  with  Chedor- 
la’omer,  and  cites  Gen.  xiv.  (Arioch  of  Larsa  and 
Chedor-la’omer  of  Elam)  in  support  of  his  view. 

Before  I proceed  to  contrast  my  own  translation 
of  this  tablet  with  that  just  quoted  from  Scheil,  it 
will  perhaps  help  the  reader  to  form  a more  correct 
judgment  as  to  this  important  identification  if  I 
furnish  the  date  to  which  Scheil  alludes,  and  which 
associates  Eri-Aku  and  the  “prince  of  Yamutbal  ” 
with  Khammu-rabi,  just  as  Scheil’s  new  tablet  links 
Chedor-la’omer  and  Khammu-rabi  together.  One 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 75 

of  the  Tel  Sifr  contract  tablets,  dated  in  the  reign 
of  Khammu-rabi  (Strassmaier,  No.  37),  bears  the  fol- 
lowing subscription,  which  throws  an  important 
light  on  the  history  of  Ancient  Babylonia. 

“ In  the  year  in  which  Khammu-rabi  the  king,  with 
the  help  of  Anu  and  Bel,  in  whose  grace  he  lives, 
overthrew1  the  prince  ( adda  vide  supra , p.  166)  of 
Yamutbalu  and  Ri-Aku  (written  Ri-im-Sin).” 

With  Eri-Aku’s  original  inscriptions  before  us, 
our  first  impulse  would  be  to  identify  the  “ prince 
of  Yamutbal”  mentioned  above  with  Eri-Aku’s  , 
father  Kudur-Mabug,  who  nearly  always  bears  this 
title,  but  Scheil  prefers  to  take  it  as  applying  to 
Chedor-la’omer.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  if  my 
explanation  of  the  Erech  inscription  on  p.  167  is  the 
correct  one  (i.e.  if  Kudur-Mabug  was  no  longer  liv- 
ing at  the  time  of  Eri-Aku’s  conquest  of  Erech),  it 
follows  as  a natural  consequence  that  it  is  not  Ku- 
dur  Mabug  who  is  referred  to  in  the  inscription  in 
question,  but  his  successor  in  the  principality  of  Ya- 
mutbal. Whether  or  not,  however,  this  latter  was 
Kudur-Lagamar,  who  it  will  be  remembered  is  ex- 
plicitly described  both  in  the  Epic  texts  ( vide  infra ) 
and  also  in  Gen.  xiv.  as  “ king  of  Elam,”  is  still  to  a 
great  extent  an  open  question.  There  is,  neverthe- 
less, a good  deal  to  be  said  in  favour  of  answering 
it  in  the  affirmative.  It  is  quite  possible — indeed  it 
is  highly  probable— that  a Kudur-Lagamar  of  Ya- 
mutbal should  have  been  known  in  distant  Palestine 

1 Shu-ni  ki  nin{n)-dugt  literally  “ stretched  his  hand  to  the  earth  ; ” 
elsewhere  shu-dug-ga  is  used  in  the  sense  of  “ to  destroy,  annihilate  ” (so 
used  of  the  soil,  W.  A.  I.,  ii.  26,  11). 


176  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

by  the  more  general  title  of  “ king  of  Elam,”  of 
which  latter  region  Yamutbal  actually  formed  a 
part ; even  in  the  native  Babylonian  tradition  of 
later  times  Kudur-Lagamar  is  called  “ king  of  Elam- 
mat,”  nor,  so  far  as  we  can  tell  from  the  fragments 
that  have  come  down  to  us,  does  any  distinction 
seem  to  have  been  drawn  between  Elam  mat  and 
Yamutbal. 

And  now  to  return  to  the  letter  from  Khammu- 
rabi  to  Sinidinam,  discovered  by  Father  Scheil,  the 
text  of  which  is  given  above  on  p.  173.  To  my 
mind  the  only  satisfactory  way  of  translating  it  is 
as  follows  : — 

To  Sin-idinam 
give  the  following  order 
from  Khammu-rabi : 
the  goddesses  of  Emutbal, 

(5)  thy  mistresses, 

on  the  day  in  which  Kudur-luggamar 
shall  allow  thee  to  return  scatheless, 
when  they  (the  goddesses)  are  angry 
with  the  god,  thy  creator, 
destroy  thou  with  the  warriors 
which  are  in  thy  hand 
(10)  the  warriors  (of  the  enemy), 

and  they  (thy  warriors)  shall  then 
the  goddesses 
bring  back  to  their  abode 
again  scatheless. 

This  rendering  seems  to  me  to  be,  at  any  rate 
more  grammatically  correct  than  Scheil’s,  viz. : “ the 
goddesses  of  Emutbal  have  I on  the  day  of  Kudur- 
luggamar  (i.e.  on  the  day  of  his  defeat)  given  over 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 77 

to  thee  unharmed  ; ” for  ushallam , though  it  may,  no 
doubt,  also  be  taken  as  1st  person  singular,  is  cer- 
tainly in  the  present  tense,  and  lines  6 and  7 are 
clearly  parenthetical.  The  situation  was  manifestly 
as  follows 

Sin-idinam,  probably  a grandson  of  the  famous 
king  Sin-idinam  (son  of  Nur  Ramman)  of  Larsa,1  had 
evidently  been  originally  master  of  Larsa  and 
Yamutbal,  but  had  been  deposed  by  Kudur-Mabug 
and  Eri-Aku.  This  deposition  would  seem  to  have 
taken  place  during  the  reign  of  Sin-muballit  over 
Northern  Babylonia.  Many  years  afterwards  Kudur- 
Mabug  was  succeeded  on  the  throne  by  his  kinsman 
Kudur-Lagamar,  who,  as  the  poetic  fragments  tell 
us,  laid  waste  North  Babylonia,  but  was  at  length 
defeated  by  Khammu-rabi.  As  a result  of  this, 
Kudur-Lagamar  was  forced  to  release  Sin-idinam, 
who  had  been  a prisoner  in  Elam  for  about  thirty 
years,  and  it  must  have  been  on  this  occasion  that 
Khammu-rabi  dispatched  the  letter  in  question,  in 
order  that  it  might  be  handed  to  Sin-idinam  on  his 
return  to  Larsa.  The  goddesses  of  Yamutbal— now 
once  more  a Babylonian  possession — were  probably 
statues  which  had  been  carried  off  on  a previous  oc- 
casion by  the  Elamite  king  from  Dur-ilu  to  some 
town  in  the  interior;  this  was  why  they  “ were 

1 We  also  find  the  name  of  another  Sin-idinam  son  of  Gaish- 

W.  A.  I.,  i.  3,  No.  IX.,  who  is  styled  “guardian  of  Ur,  king  of  Larsa, 
king  of  Sumer  and  Akkad.”  As  the  title  “king  of  Sumer  and  Akkad  ” 
was  not  borne  by  Nur-Ramman,  but  is  first  given  to  his  son  Sin-idinam, 
this  second  Sin-idinam  must  have  come  to  the  throne  after  the  son  of 
Nfir-Ramman,  and  it  is  evidently  to  him  that  reference  is  made  above. 


12 


178 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


angry  ” (the  regular  Babylonian  expression  in  such 
cases)  with  Sin-idinam’s  patron  deity,  the  Samas  of 
Larsa,  who  had  been  so  unreasonable  as  to  allow  this 
to  happen.  Now,  however,  that  Dur-ilu  had  once 
more  passed  into  Babylonian  hands,  the  first  con- 
cern of  the  new  Babylonian  sovereign  would  natu- 
rally be  to  see  that  these  divine  images  were  brought 
back  again.  This  is  why  Khammu-rabi  impresses 
on  Sin-idinam  that  the  moment  he  is  at  liberty  again 
he  must,  if  necessary,1  secure  their  return,  by  force; 
a threat  to  use  force  in  the  event  of  refusal  would 
have  been  no  empty  one,  now  that  Chedor-la’omer 
had  been  overthrown  and  that  Sin-idinam  was  backed 
by  his  present  suzerain,  the  mighty  Khammu-rabi  ; 
we  may  safely  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  images 
were  speedily  brought  back  to  Dur-ilu,  and  re-in- 
stated in  their  former  abode.  For  the  power  of 
Chedor-la’omer  had  now  been  broken  once  and  for 
all.  In  a great  many  of  Khammu-rabi’s  inscriptions, 
the  conqueror  of  Eri-Aku  and  of  Kudur-Lagamar 
appears  as  Lord  over  the  whole  of  Babylonia,  for 
not  only  does  he  boast  in  them  of  the  great  canals 
he  has  dug  and  the  extensive  cornfields  he  has  laid 
out  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  Sumer  and 
Akkad,  but  he  also  describes  himself,  almost  in  the 
same  breath,  as  “ Destroyer  of  adversaries,  whirl- 
wind of  the  battle,  vanquisher  of  the  people  of  the 
enemy,  making  strife  to  cease,  conqueror  of  rebels, 

1 i.e.  should  they  not  be  given  up  voluntarily  on  Sin-idinam’s  re- 
lease. This  possibility  is  provided  against  in  line  8 of  Khammu- 
rabi’s  letter,  by  the  words,  “ when  they  (are  still)  angry  with  the  god 
thy  creator.” 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 79 


who  shattereth  warriors  like  images  of  clay,  and 
opens  up  difficult  paths  ” (?). 

To  complete  the  picture,  we  need  go  no  further 
than  the  poems  in  which  the  memory  of  the  heroes 
of  that  period  was  perpetuated  among  the  Babylo- 
nians. Fragments  of  these  poems,  discovered  by 
Mr.  Pinches,  as  already  mentioned,  are  preserved 
in  the  Spartoli  Collection  in  the  British  Museum, 
and  formed  part  of  a Babylonian  library  in  the  time 
of  the  Achaemenides.  They  are  probably  copies  of 
earlier  originals,  belonging,  it  may  be,  to  a time  not 
far  removed  from  that  of  Khammu-rabi  himself. 
The  longest  and  most  perfectly  preserved  of  these 
fragments — all  three  of  which  take  for  their  theme 
the  inroads  of  Kudur-dugmal  (or  Kudur- lugmal, 
for  this  is  the  form  which  the  name  here  assumes) 
into  North  Babylonia — may  be  freely  translated  as 
follows : — 

(6)  (Obverse :) 

. . . . and  pressed  on  against  the  august 

portals 

the  Istar-door,  he  unlocked,  tore  it  from  its 
hinges,  threw  it  down  in  the  holy  dwelling 
like  the  pitiless  war-god  1 went  he  into  Dul- 

makh,2 

(10)  he  installed  himself  in  Dul-makh,  as  he 

looked  on  the  temple, 
and  opened  his  mouth,  thus  speaking  to  his 

men, 

1 Urra  (or  Girra ) la  gamil , a play  on  the  name  Kudur-lagamal  ( vide 
supra , p.  105)-  Cf.  the  personal  name  Uj  ra-gamil  in  the  contract  tab- 

lets (Meissner,  No.  52).  2 Name  of  the  desecrated  temple. 


l8o  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

unto  all  his  warriors  cried  he  hastily  the  in- 
justice 

“ Take  away  the  spoils  of  the  temple,  seize 

its  possessions 

tear  away  its  bas-reliefs,  unfasten  its 

chambers.” 

(15)  Then  ....  and  pressed  on  . . . . 

(20)  and  there  came  in  the  overseer  of  the  princes, 
he  tore  the  doors  from  their  hinges, 
against  En  - nun -dagal-la 1 pressed  on  the 
enemy  with  evil  intent, 
before  him  was  the  god  clothed  in  light, 
like  a thunder-bolt  flashed  he,  the  conquered 

ones  trembled, 

and  the  enemy  became  afraid,  hid  (?)  him- 
self, 

and  he  descended  to  his  priest,  as  he  spoke 

the  command  to  him 

the  god  is  clothed  in  light 

and  the  conquered  ones  tremble 

. . the  En-nun-dagal,  take  away  his  diadem 

his  house,  seize  his  hand 

(30)  But  [En-nun-dagalla]  was  not  afraid,  nor 

cared  he  for  his  life, 

En-nun-dagalla,  did 

not  remove  his  diadem 

the  Elamite  proclaimed  to  the 

lands 


1 i.e.  against  Khammu-rabi  ; vide  supr p.  105  [the  Semitic  form  was 
something  like  Kummu-rapaltu]. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 8 1 

. . . the  Elamite,  the  evil  one,  proclaimed 

to  the  fields  (?) 


(Reverse  a dish  of 

When  the  lurking  daemon  (his)  greeting.  . 
then  descended  his  (evil)  spirit  who  the 

temple  .... 
the  hostile  Elamite,  when  he  hastily  sent 

misfortune, 

(5)  and  Bel  against  Babel  evil  plotted. 

When  right  no  longer  existed,  and  mischief 

took  its  place, 

from  the  temple,  the  house  of  the  whole 
body  of  the  gods,  came  down  his  (evil)  spirit 
the  hostile  Elamite  took  away  his  goods 
(9)  Bel,  who  (at  other  times)  dwelt  therein,  him 

had  anger  taken  hold  of 

ordered  destruction 

him  had  anger  taken  hold  of, 

Bel  the  Manda-tribes  the  road 

to  Sumer 

Who  is  Kudur-luggamal,  the  author  of  evil? 
and  he  summoned  the  Manda-tribes . . of  Bel 
and  laid  in  ruins  .....  on  their  side 
When  from  E-zidda  (in  Borsippa)  . his  . 
(25)  and  Nebo  the  guardian  of  the  world  caused 

his  daemon  to  descend, 
down  to  the  country  of  the  sea  did  they  turn 

their  face 

I-ne-Tutu  1 who  in  the  country  of  the  sea  . 

1 Or  I-bil-Tutu?  Tutu  is  another  name  for  Bel-Merodach.  Hence 
probably  (cf.  ibil  — Sem.  aplu)  Apil-Bel  of  dynasty  B.  (supra,  p.  121)  ? 


1 82  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

and  he  passed  through  the  country  of  the 
sea  and  set  up  an  evil  dwelling-place 
E-zidda,  the  everlasting  house,  its  chambers 

came  into  distress. 

(30)  The  hostile  Elamite,  made  ready  his  team 
down  towards  Borsippa  turned  he  his  face 
and  he  descended  the  high-road  of  darkness 
the  high-road  to  Mish(-ki) 
the  evil-doer,  the  Elamite,  destroyed  his 

wall  (?) 

the  princes  ....  destroyed  he  with  the 

sword 

(35)  All  the  spoil  of  the  temple  plundered  he 

he  took  their  gods  and  carried  them  away  to 

Elam 

. annihilated  their  kings, 

(they)  . . . and  filled  the  land  (therewith). 

In  regard  to  the  form  of  these  fragments  there  is 
one  point  which  escaped  Mr.  Pinches’  notice,  but 
which  is  none  the  less  of  immense  importance  when 
we  come  to  criticise  them  as  a whole.  I mean  the 
fact,  discovered  by  Gunkel  and  Zimmern,  that  they 
are  cast  in  an  epic  metre,  every  line  being  divided 
into  two  half-verses,  each  containing  two  accented 
syllables ; I have  tried  to  imitate  this  here  and  there 
in  the  translation  (e.g.  reverse  1.  5 “ and  Bel  against 
Babel — evil  plotted  ”).  The  metre  alone  is  enough 
to  show  that  the  fragment  in  question  must  have 
formed  part  of  an  epic  poem,  and  the  same  remark 
applies  to  the  two  smaller  fragments  in  which  a 
similar  metrical  arrangement  is  also  discernible. 

The  large  fragment  (Sp.  158-f-Sp.  II.  962)  shows 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 83 

us  the  victorious  enemy  just  as  he  is  on  the  point  of 
looting  the  Temple  of  Bel  at  Babylon.  Ennun-da- 
galla,  (Kimtu-rapaltu),  i.e.  Khammu-rabi  himself,  had 
taken  refuge  in  the  Holy  of  Holies.  But  when  his 
pursuers  burst  open  the  door,  the  statue  of  the  god 
blazed  out  in  dazzling  radiance  in  order  to  protect 
him,  and  Kudur-luggamal,  blinded  by  the  glare,  was 
forced  to  ask  the  priest  to  seize  the  king  and  tear 
the  royal  diadem  from  his  head.  Khammu-rabi 
seems,  however,  to  have  been  preserved  from  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  victor  by  another  miracle. 
Kudur-Luggamal  made  up  for  this  by  plundering 
the  temple  (Reverse  1.  1 — 9),  and  then  proceeded  to 
play  similar  havoc  with  the  temple  of  the  god  Nebo 
at  Borsippa  (Reverse  1.  24 — 38).  In  this  last  passage 
the  fate  of  Borsippa  is  manifestly  associated  with 
the  country  of  the  Sea  (i.e.  Arabia),  a name  which 
at  that  time  was  evident^  applied  to  the  whole  re- 
gion in  the  direction  of  Arabia  lying  to  the  west  of 
the  Euphrates,  from  Borsippa  to  the  Persian  Gulf, 
and  even  as  far  as  Bahrein,  where  began  the  road 
leading  to  the  Land  of  Darkness1  (reverse  1.  32), 
known  also  as  the  road  to  Mish-ki.2  The  association 
of  Borsippa  with  the  country  of  the  sea  is  eminently 
suggestive  of  the  Arabian  origin  of  the  Khammu- 
rabi  dynasty. 

The  only  absolutely  novel  point  about  the  other 
two  fragments  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  both  contain 

1 Cf.  the  date  of  the  contract  tablet  quoted  on  p.  35  supra,  Meissner, 
77- 

2 From  Mash-ki,  i.e.  Ki-mash,  elsewhere  simply  Mash,  in  Central 
Arabia,  cf.  pp.  34,  35,  and  38,  supra. 


184  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


a reference  to  a fresh  personage,  viz.,  Dur-mach- 
ilani,  son  of  Eri-Aku  of  Larsa,  with  whose  name  the 
reader  must  by  this  time  be  familiar  ; one  of  the 
fragments  also  mentions — in  a context  which  is  un- 
fortunately obscure  — a certain  Tudkhula  (written 

Tu-ud-khul-a)  son  of  Gaz-za who  can 

of  course  be  no  other  than  Tid’al  (properly  Tid- 
ghal),  king  of  the  Goiim,1  whose  name  occurs  in 
Gen.  xiv. 

And  now  let  us  examine  one  of  these  two  smaller 
fragments,  Sp.  III.  2,  a little  more  closely.  It  is  only 
from  line  9 on  the  obverse  side,  onwards,  that  we 
can  make  any  sense  out  of  it. 

it  did  Dur-mach-ilani,  son  of  Iri-Aku  overthrow 

(10).  . . plundered,  waters  (came)  over  Babylon 

and  Bit-Saggil 

his  son  (?)  with  the  sword  of  his  hand,  slew 

him  a lamb. 

. . . in  order  to  ...  . old  and  young 

with  the  sword 

. . . tur-gn-di-is  (vide  supra)  Tudkhula,  Son 

of  Gazza 

plundered  he,  wafers  (came)  over 

Babylon  and  Bit-Saggil 

(15)  his  son  with  the  sword  of  his  hand  struck 

down  his  skull 

the  . . . of  his  guardian  office  (?)  before  the 
goddess  Anunit  (brought  he?) 

On  the  reverse  side  the  inscription  is  still  more 
fragmentary,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  following  lines — 

1 Cf.  the  word  Tur -gudis  (?)  which  immediately  precedes  the  name 
Tudkhula. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 85 

(1)  [the  king]  of  Elam  the  city on 

the  high-road  (?)  of  the  land  Rabbatu 

plundered  he 

. . . . like  a whirlwind  made  he  his  zuhdti, 

the  land  of  Akkad,  all  their  holy  places 

held  back  Kudur-dugmal  his  son, 

with  the  iron  dagger  his  middle 
his  heart  transfixed  (?)  he, 

his  enemy,  Nabu-kima-ab’i-shar- 

rani  Q),phidtu  (scion  ?)  of  the 
Sinners  (?)... 

(5)  . . the  majesty  (?)  of  the  king  of  the  gods, 

Merodach,  was  wrathful  over  them  . . 

me  (?),  their  breast 

anathema  (?) 

in  order  to  destroy  . . 

they  all  to  the  king,  our  (?)  Lord, 
. . . . of  the  heart  of  the  gods  were  firm 

Merodach,  in  memory  of  his  name 

and  Bit-Saggil  . . to  his 

place  may  it  . . . 

(10) this  the  king  my 

Lord  . . . 

The  metre  seems  to  be  the  same  as  in  the  large 
fragment,  except  that  in  this  text  each  line  evidently 
contains  more  than  two  half-verses  : probably,  there- 
fore, there  is  more  matter  missing  on  the  left  than  is 
indicated  in  the  above  tentative  translation.  As  to 
the  subject  matter,  the  scene  of  the  Elamite  depre- 
dations is  here  again  laid  in  North  Babylonia,  Baby- 
lon and  its  chief  temple  Bit-Saggil  being  specially 
mentioned.  One  very  peculiar  thing  about  it  is  the 


86 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


name  of  the  son  of  Eri-Aku,1  viz.,  Dur-mach-ilani, 
i.e.  “great  wall  (construct  form  of  a word  durma- 
chu ) of  the  gods.”  As  no  son  of  Eri-Aku  is  any- 
where mentioned  in  contemporary  texts,  and  as  the 
name  looks  very  like  that  of  a place,  there  being  ab- 
solutely no  parallel  to  it  among  Babylonian  per- 
sonal names,2  we  are  almost  tempted  to  believe  that 
it  must  be  due  to  the  creative  imagination  of  the 
poet ; or  can  it  be  possible  that  the  fact  of  Eri-Aku 
being  son  of  K.udur-Mabug  of  Dur -ilu  (Yamutbal) 
may  have  led  the  writer  to  invent  for  him  a son 
named  Dur-mach.-il&ni}  One  thing,  however,  is 
clear,  in  spite  of  the  mutilated  condition  of  the 
text,  and  this  is,  that  both  this  son  of  Eri-Aku’s  and 
the  Tudkhul  whose  name  occurs  immediately  after 
the  second  reference  to  plundering,  must  have  been 
auxiliaries  and  allies  of  Chedor-la’omer’s.  On  the 
obverse,  line  15,  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether  the 
words  “ his  skull  ” refer  to  a sacrificial  victim  or  to 
a Babylonian,  and  line  3 on  the  reverse  is  no  less 
obscure  : it  might  also  be  rendered  thus:  “ Kudur- 
dugmal,  his  (i.e.  some  Babylonian’s)  son,  stabbed  he 
through  the  heart  ” : it  is  not,  therefore,  necessary 
to  argue,  as  Pinches  does,  that  Chedor-la’omer  was 
guilty  of  murdering  his  son.  It  is  much  to  be  re- 
gretted that  the  name  of  the  town  in  the  first  line  of 

1 Phonetically  : Eri-E-a-ku,  or  Eri-T-a-ku,  {vide  supra,  p.  169). 

2 The  nearest  approach  to  it  is  in  names  such  as  Nabu-durpania  (Neo- 
Babyl.),  Duri-Assur,  Istar-duri,  Duri-ma-itti-Ramman.  But  their  mean- 
ing proves  these  names  to  belong  to  a different  category  from  Dur-mach- 
ilani  ; the  discrepancy  would  not  be  so  great  if  the  name  were  even 
Durmachi-ilu. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 8/ 

the  reverse  is  missing  ; by  “the  land  Rabbatu,”  pos- 
sibly either  Rabbat- Ammon  in  the  region  east  of  the 
Jordan  (cf.  Gen.  xiv.),  or  Khani-rabbat  to  the  north 
of  Mesopotamia,  may  be  intended.  If  the  trans- 
lation “ on  the  high-road  to  Rabbat  ” be  correct,  it 
is  possible  that  the  town  whose  name  is  missing 
must  have  been  situated  somewhere  in  Babylonia. 

We  now  come  to  the  last  fragment,  Sp.  II.  987. 
Here  again  little  more  than  an  attempt  at  trans- 
lation is  possible. 

band  (bolt?)  of  heaven 

which  toward  the  four  winds  . . 

(5)  he  appointed  for  them  as  a shirtu  which  in 
Dintir  ( — Babylon),  the  city  of  renown 

(is  to  be  found) 

he  appointed  for  them  the  possession  of  Eki 
(i.e.  of  Babylon)  small  and  large. 
In  their  everlasting  decree  for  Kudur- 
Dugmal,  King  of  Elam 
preserved  (?)  they  . . .“Well  then,  what 

to  them  seems  good  [will  I do?] 
in  Eki  the  city  of  Karduniash,  will  I exercise 

sovereignty  ” 

in  Dintir,  the  city  of  Marduk,  king  of  the  gods 

laid  they 

(10)  shukullu  and  dogs  of  Bit-Khabbatu,1  to  whom 

he  is  favourable 

they  carved of  a flying  raven 

which  he  loves  (?) 


1 i.e.  House  of  the  Robber  ; as  the  Beduin  are  elsewhere  described  as 
robbers  (Khabbatu),  it  is  probable  that  the  desert  is  here  intended. 


1 88 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


while  a croaking  raven  who  spits  out  gall, 

he  cannot  endure, 
a dog,  who  gnaws  bones,  him  doth  Nin(-ib?) 

love 

but  the  snake  of  the  Beduin  which  spits  out 
the  poison,  he  cannot  endure 
(15)  Who  is  then  the  king  of  Elam,  who  maintains 

Bit  Saggil  ? 

. the  inhabitants  of  Eki  made  it 

and  their  embassy  [sent  they] 

the which  thou  writest  thus, — “ I 

am  a king  and  the  son  of  a king  ” 
is  not  [true] 

[who]  then  is  the  son  of  the  king’s  daughter 
who  seats  himself  on  the  throne 
of  the  king 

Durmach-ilani,  the  son  of  Eri-Ekua  (and) 

of  Amat-(Istar) 

(20)  has  seated  himself  on  the  throne  of  sovereignty 

but  before  the  [judges] 
may  [the  sentence]  of  the  king  be  published, 
which  from  time  immemorial  . . 

is  proclaimed,  the  Lord  of  E-ki,  they  do  not 

confirm  (?)... 
[in]  the  month  of  Sivan,  in  the  month  of 
Tammuz  were  made  in  Babylon  . . 


In  spite  of  the  obscurity  of  many  of  the  expressions 
employed  in  this  fragment,  it  seems  to  clearly  estab- 
lish one  fact,  viz.,  that  the  Elamites  had  succeeded — 
at  any  rate  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer  of  the  Epos — 
in  securing  a temporary  foothold  in  Babylon.  And, 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 89 

evidently,  Chedor-la’omer  had  proclaimed  the  son 
of  Eri-Aku  king  in  place  of  Khammu-rabi.  The 
question  as  to  who  was  the  son  of  a king’s  daughter, 
is  apparently  ironical,  for  an  inscription  of  Eri-Aku’s, 
published  by  Winckler,  states  that  his  wife  Amat- 
Istar  was  the  daughter  of  a certain  Arad-Uru-ki, 
who,  since  no  title  is  inserted  after  his  name,  was 
manifestly  not  a king. 

It  is  thus  that  the  mighty  conqueror  Chedor-la 
’omer  is  represented  in  the  later  Babylonian  tradition. 
Now,  if  we  assume — an  assumption  which  has  already 
been  shown  to  be  for  other  reasons  inadmissible  (cf. 
pp.  162  et  seq.) — that  some  post-exilic  Jew  obtained 
the  facts  set  down  in  Gen.  xiv.  from  Babylonian 
sources,  we  must  further  assume  that  he  also  had 
before  him  an  ancient  Israelite  tradition  in  which 
Abraham  was  connected  either  with  Khammu-rabi 
or,  it  may  be,  with  Chedor-la’omer.  For,  manifestly 
the  Babylonian  priests  could  not  possibly  have  known 
anything  about  Abraham  ; how  then  did  they  come 
to  pitch  on  Chedor-la’omer,  Eri-aku  and  Khammu- 
rabi,  when  questioned  by  this  hypothetical  Jew  as  to 
the  political  surroundings  of  the  patriarchal  epoch 
of  his  race  ? There  were  plenty  of  other  Babylonian 
kings  who  had  made  expeditions  into  the  “countries 
of  the  West.”  The  kings  of  the  Tel  el-Amarna 
period,  for  example,  distinguished  by  their  diplo- 
matic embassies  to  Palestine  and  Egypt,  would  have 
been  far  more  likely  to  occur  to  the  mind  of  a Baby- 
lonian. Or,  must  we  go  so  far  as  to  assume  that  the 
Jew  asked  point-blank  for  information  concerning 
the  events  of  the  period  about  1950  B.c.  ( i.e . of  an 


I90  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

epoch  nearly  1550  years  before  his  time)?  Even  had 
he  done  so,  there  was  little  likelihood  of  his  hearing 
anything  about  Khammu-rabi,  since,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  Babylonians  of  a later  time,  owing  to  their  mis- 
take in  adding  Dynasties  A and  B together,  ante- 
dated this  monarch  by  at  least  two  hundred  years 
(viz.  2150  B.C.).  Or,  as  a last  hypothesis — if  the  real 
object  of  the  whole  narrative  in  this  chapter  was  to 
furnish  a peg  on  which  to  hang  Melchizedek’s  salu- 
tation and  blessing,  our  Jew’s  most  natural  course 
would  have  been  to  ask  about  Melchizedek  and  any 
relations  which  may  have  subsisted  between  him  and 
the  Babylonian  kings.  And  even  assuming  that  the 
Babylonian  priests  knew  anything  at  all  about 
Melchizedek  or  about  any  of  the  kings  of  the  Jordan 
basin  contemporary  with  him — which  is  by  no  means 
probable — would  not  this  very  fact  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  an  historical  tradition  connecting  a known 
contemporary  of  Abraham  with  Khammu-rabi. 

Fortunately,  however,  it  is  not  necessary  to  resort 
to  indirect  reasoning  of  this  kind.  The  narrative  in 
Gen.  xiv.  differs  in  some  of  its  details  not  only  from 
the  account  which  we  glean  from  contemporary  in- 
scriptions, but  also — and  to  a far  greater  extent — 
from  the  later  Babylonian  tradition;  it  introduces 
into  the  history  of  Khammurabi  as  presented  in  the 
ancient  monuments  an  entirely  new  episode,  which 
fits  into  the  political  circumstances  of  the  period 
like  a missing  fragment,  and  thus  completes,  and 
throws  a most  valuable  light  on,  the  knowledge  of 
this  remote  epoch  which  we  gather  from  the  cunei- 
form records.  The  theory  that  the  names  of  the 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  191 

kings,  together  with  the  fact  that  Chedor-la’omer 
had  once  led  an  expedition  into  “ the  countries  of 
the  West,”  were  transferred  from  Babylonian  rec- 
ords in  post-exilic  times,  and  that  a campaign  on  the 
part  of  the  four  allied  kings  as  far  as  Ailat  and  Ka- 
desh-barnea  was  then  invented,  is  absolutely  inadmis- 
sible. The  material  handed  down  to  us  in  Gen.  xiv. 
is  neither  more  nor  less  than  genuine  and  ancient 
tradition. 

In  regard  to  the  source  from  which  Gen.  xiv.  was 
derived,  the  balance  of  probability  inclines — as  has 
already  been  indicated  above  (p.  152) — in  favour  of 
a cuneiform  original.  An  original  moreover,  dating 
not  from  the  post-exilic  period  but  from  Jerusalem, 
in  or  soon  after  the  time  of  Abraham,  a Hebrew 
translation  of  which  must  have  been  incorporated 
into  the  main  stock  of  the  Pentateuch  at  a very  early 
date.  We  now  know  for  a fact  that  the  cuneiform 
script  was  employed  in  Palestine,  and  especially  in 
Jerusalem,  as  early  as  1400  B.C.,  being  a survival  of 
the  supremacy  previously  exercised  for  so  many 
years  by  Babylon.  That  this  must  have  been  so, 
and  that  Gen.  xiv.  must  therefore  have  been  origi- 
nally inscribed  on  a clay  tablet,  follows  directly  from 
the  form  of  the  name  Amraphel.  Had  the  narrative 
come  originally  from  a Hebrew  source,  and  been 
written  down  in  the  West-Semitic  script  (i.e.  in  the 
so-called  Phoenician  alphabet)  this  name  must  in- 
evitably have  appeared  as  ‘A mmi-rab  (with  initial 
‘Ayin),  as  the  earliest  Hebrews  were  familiar  with 
names  compounded  with  “ ‘Ammi  ” ; we  must  not 
forget,  moreover,  that  the  Arabs,  from  whom  Kham- 


192 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


mu-rabi  was  descended,  were  their  near  relations. 
The  form  ^//zraphel,  on  the  other  hand,  can  only  be 
explained  on  the  supposition  that  the  original  of 
Gen.  xiv.  contained  the  reading  Ammu-  rapal(tu). 
But  such  a reading  as  ^4;/z;/z&-rapaltu  could  not  pos- 
sibly occur  except  in  a cuneiform  text  dating  from 
the  time  of  the  Khammu-rabi  dynasty,  for  at  that 
period  alone  do  we  find  the  variants  Ammu-rabi  and 
Amrni- rabi  side  by  side  with  KJiamimi- rabi ; that  the 
second  element  rabi  was  actually  regarded,  in  Kham- 
murabi’s  time,  as  an  ideogram  equivalent  to  rapalta, 
is  evident  from  the  Babylonian  form  Eki  + rapaltu  1 
[see  p.  105],  with  which  the  variants  of  later  times, 
Kimtu-rapashtu  and  Kummu-rapaltu,  are  connected. 
But  even  should  it  be  objected  that  the  remarkable 
resemblance  in  sound  between  the  -raphel  in  Amra- 
phel,  and  rapaltu 2 3 * * (otherwise  rapashtti),  is  a mere 
coincidence,  there  is  a second  and  eminently  note- 
worthy consideration  which  also  points  to  a cunei- 
form original  for  Amraphel.  If  we  assume  that  in 
the  supposed  Jerusalem  original  the  name  may 
have  been  written  Am-mu-ra-be  (instead  of  Am-mu- 
ra-bi),  then,  since  the  symbol  be'6  not  infrequently 

1 Eki  = probably  Ammu.  Cf.  Sumerian  ki  = earth  and  Semit.  am- 
mat  u — earth. 

2 For  the  benefit  of  those  who  are  not  Assyriologists,  I may  explain 
that  the  feminine  of  rapshu  = broad,  is  rapashtu ; this  the  laws  of  As- 
syro-Babylonian  pronunciation  (especially  in  the  common  language  cf 
the  people)  transformed  into  rapaltu. 

3 This  is  really  the  neo-Assyrian  symbol  ve , which  possessed  the  value 

be  (or  bi)  only  in  the  second  millennium  B.C.  (i.e.  in  the  time  of  the 

Khammu-rabi  Dynasty  and  Tel  el-Amarna  period).  Although  in  the 

Khammurabi  records,  the  name  of  Khammurahi  himself  is  always  writ- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 93 

possesses  the  sound-value  pil  as  well,  the  scribe  who 
translated  the  original  document  into  Hebrew  may 
— especially  if  the  name  did  not  happen  to  be  fa- 
miliar to  him — very  easily  have  read  it  as  Am-mu- 
ra-pil,  which  is  identical,  consonant  for  consonant, 
with  Amraphel.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  first  part  of 
the  name  is,  in  any  case,  sufficient  to  prove  the  nat- 
ure of  the  original  source  of  the  fourteenth  chapter 
of  Genesis,  which  we,  of  course,  possess  only  in  its 
Hebrew  form. 

I have  already  (p.  164)  laid  stress  on  the  fact  that 
the  name  Chedor- la’omer  also  points  to  an  earlier 
period ; for,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  early  form  in 
the  contemporary  monuments  is  Kudur-luggamar, 
while  the  later  form  which  survives  in  the  Epos  is 
Kudur-dugmal  or  Kudur-luggamal. 

Moreover,  the  ancient  name  for  Zoar  in  Gen.  xiv. 
2 and  8,  viz.  Bela ’ (lxx.  BaXarc),  which  nowhere  else 
occurs  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament, 
also  presupposes  a cuneiform  original,  dating  from 
the  Ancient  Babylonian  Empire.  Somewhere  in  the 
“countries  of  the  West”  there  was  an  ancient  city 
named  Malka,  also  called  Margu,  Malgu,  Malagu, 
Malgi  or  Milgia.  It  is  probably  identical  with  the 
Madga  of  the  time  of  Gudea,  which  is  associated 
with  a river  named  Gurruda  (the  Jordan?)  as  a 
place  from  which  asphalt  was  obtained.  For  this 
reason  the  Babylonians  came  to  use  the  word  malgA 
as  a synonym  for  brick  (because  it  was  customary 

ten  with  the  ordinary  symbol  for  bi,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  a Ca- 
naanite  scribe  may,  in  writing  Khammurabi,  have  employed  the  other 
symbol  for  bi,  which  can  also  be  read  as  pil. 

13 


194 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


to  lay  bricks  with  asphalt  in  place  of  mortar).  In 
the  dating  of  contract  tablets  of  the  Khammu-rabi 
dynasty  reference  is  made  to  the  demolition  of  the 
walls  of  the  city  of  Mai'r  and  of  the  city  of  Malka 
(Meissner,  No.  27) ; Mair  was  a famous  port  which 
gave  its  name  to  ships  and  textile  fabrics,1  its  patron 
goddess  being  “ the  Mistress  of  the  Desert,”  and  was 
probably  identical  with  Ailat  (El  Pa’ran,  Gen.  xiv). 
In  the  British  Museum  there  is  a tablet  from  the 
library  of  Assur-banipal  (k.  3500)  in  which  the  an- 
cient Assyrian  monarch  Assur  - bel- kala,2  son  of 
Tiglath-pileser  I.  (ca.  1100  B.c.)  calls  down  male- 
dictions from  deities  of  all  degrees  on  the  “ coun- 
tries of  the  West.”  I am  indebted  to  the  un- 
selfish kindness  of  my  old  friend  Pinches  for  an 
accurate  copy  of  this  important  document.  It  runs 
as  follows: — 

(2)  the  goddess  Ishtar 

the  goddess  Gula,  the  great  healer  (f.)  . . . 

with  destructive  blindness  may  she  their 
(, eoruin ) bodies  [punish] 

(5)  the  seven  (?)  mighty  gods,  may  they  with 

their  weapons 

the  god  (of)  Baiti-ilani  (Bethel,  cf.  Gen.xxxv.7) 

1 Cf.  the  analogous  expressions,  “ Tarsis-  ships  ” and  “East  India- 
man.” 

2 Unfortunately  the  name  of  the  king  is  not  clearly  written,  and  of  his 
father’s  name  only  the  first  element,  Tuklat,  has  been  preserved.  It  is 
just  possible  that  Assur-natsir-pal,  son  of  Tukulti-Nindar,  who  flourished 
at  the  commencement  of  the  ninth  century  B.C.,  may  be  meant,  though, 
on  the  evidence,  I consider  this  the  less  probable  hypothesis  ; Assur- 
bel-kala  mentions  the  gods  of  the  “countries  of  the  West”  {vide  my 
history  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  p.  536). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 95 

may  he  with  the  hands  of  a ravening 
lion 

the  great  gods  of  heaven  and  of  the  earth, 
the  gods  of  Ebir-narix  may  they  with  an 
irrevocable  curse  curse  [them]. 
(10)  Ba’al  samemi  (the  Baal  of  Heaven),  Ba’al  (of) 
Malagi,  Ba’al-za-bu  (-bi  or  - na  ?) 
May  this  wind  with  ships  from  . . . . 

chariots  their  {earnin')  names  des-  . . . 


their  ( earum ) a 

mighty  flood  with 

may  them  {eas)  des- a great 


inundation  over  you 
[come] 

the  god  of  Milgia  and  he  (of)  Yasumunu1 2 

may  they  your  land  to 

(15)  Your  people  (may  they)  to  spoliation  hand 
over,  from  your  land  .... 
the  water  in  your  mouth,  the  fire  on  your 

hearth 

the  oil  when  you  anoint  yourselves,  may 

they  destroy 

the  Astartu  may  she  in  the  mighty  combat 
the  bow 


1 Literally,  “the  (far)  bank  of  the  river,”  meaning,  probably,  the  Jor- 
dan. I shall  have  something  more  to  say  hereafter  in  regard  to  this  im- 
portant word,  which,  in  the  Persian  era,  was  used  of  Palestine  itself. 

2 Hebr.  Yeshimdn  ( i.e . desert),  in  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan  ; cf. 
also  the  personal  names  Isimanai  (Meissner,  No.  35)  and  Isimmanum 
(Meissner,  No.  87),  in  the  time  of  Abraham  and  the  Arab  tribe,  Mar- 
Stmani  (from  Mar-Isimanai  ?)  in  the  time  of  the  Assyrian  monarch  Sar- 
gon. 


196  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

make  herself  to  place  . . . The  enemy 

may  he  divide  (your)  booty 
the  city  of  Pi-a-ki  (?)-li  (?),  the  kumm  of 

Kalu 1 king  of 

This  interesting  tablet  clearly  shows  that  the  city 
of  Malgu  must  have  been  situated  in  Palestine,  and 
very  probably  in  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan.  If 
we  add  to  this  the  fact  that  in  the  clay  tablets  of  the 
time  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  symbols  ma  and  ba  is  often  very  slight,  we 
can  readily  understand  how  the  Hebrew  who  tran- 
scribed the  Babylonian  original  of  Gen.  xiv.  may  have 
come  to  render  the  place-name  Malgu  or  Malagi  by 
Bela'  (pronounced  Belag,  cf.  Chedor-la’omer  and 
Kudur-lagamar).  Moreover,  the  earliest  form  of  the 
name  of  the  city  was  certainly  Melakhi  (from  tnelakh 
= salt) ; the  expressions  “ Salt  Sea,”  “ Valley  of  Salt,” 
“ City  of  Salt  ” (at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Dead 
Sea),  “ Pillars  of  Salt,”  etc.,  are  applied  throughout 
the  Old  Testament  to  this  locality.  It  was  from 
this  form  that  the  Babylonians  obtained  their  name 
Malagi  or  Malgu,  etc.,  which  afterwards  found  its 
way  back  into  the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament,  in 
its  faulty  transcription  Bela . 

The  name  El  Pa’ran  (otherwise  Elat),  Gen.  xiv.  6, 
also  probably  owes  its  existence  to  a similar  errone- 
ous reading.  For  if  Mai'r— as  I have  shown  to  be 
probably  the  case  — is  to  be  identified  with  Elat, 

1 With  strong  ^-sound  ; on  the  reverse,  where  only  one  or  two  frag- 
mentary lines  are  still  decipherable,  in  addition  to  the  Assyrian  king,  a 
certain  king  of  Tsur-ri  (i.e.  Tyre)  is  also  mentioned,  though,  unfortu- 
nately, his  name  has  been  broken  off. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 9 7 

there  seems  good  reason  for  assuming  that  the  sym- 
bols ma  = ship  (Semit.  elippu ) and  ir  — city  (Semitic 
alu,  but  eru  also,  cf.  Hebr.  ' ir ),  in  the  cuneiform  orig- 
inal, may  have  been  wrongty  taken  for  Elip'-ir— a 
word  which  contains  all  the  radical  consonants  of 
El-pa’r  (an) ; 1 and  as  the  adjoining  desert  bore  the 
name  of  Pa’ran,  popular  etymology  would  soon  am- 
plify this  into  El-pa’ran,  especially  as  the  added  an 
is  merely  a suffix,  and  does  not  form  part  of  the 
actual  root. 

I frankly  admit  that  what  I have  just  said  in  re- 
gard to  Bela'  and  El  Pa’ran  is  mere  conjecture, 
though,  none  the  less,  probable  conjecture.  It  is, 
therefore,  all  the  more  necessary  to  lay  emphasis 
on  the  fact  that  the  name-form  Amraphel  for  Kham- 
murabi  is  in  itself  amply  sufficient  to  permit — nay 
more,  compel — us  to  assume  that  Gen.  xiv.  is  based 
on  a cuneiform  original  of  the  Khammurabi  period, 
produced  in  Palestine.  And  this  fact,  like  the  other 
historical  statements  on  which  light  has  been  thrown 
in  the  present  chapter,  goes  to  prove,  as  conclu- 
sively as  possible,  that  Abraham  was  a contempo- 
rary of  Khammurabi. 

We  now  see,  for  the  first  time  clearly,  the  obvious 
relation  between  Abraham  and  the  conclusions  in 
regard  to  the  religious  history  of  the  Hebrews 
which  we  were  able  to  deduce,  in  Chapter  III., 
from  the  Arabian  personal  names  of  the  Khammu- 
rabi dynasty.  They  form,  as  it  were,  an  effective 

*It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Hebrew  script  consisted  from 
the  outset  of  consonants  only,  so  that  in  pronouncing  a word  like  ’ Ip't 
(from  Babylonian  Elip’-ir)  any  Vi.wels  might  be  used. 


198 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


back-ground  to  his  history,  and  confirm  in  a manner, 
which  is  little  short  of  marvellous,  the  accuracy  of 
the  details  supplied  by  the  Biblical  tradition  in  re- 
gard to  the  Friend  of  God,  and  his  escape  from  the 
contagion  of  Babylonian  polytheism. 

When  we  find  that  the  modern  critics  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, even  in  the  face  of  such  facts  as  these,  still 
continue  to  write  in  the  tone  adopted  by  Well- 
hausen  in  1 889, 1 in  the  passage  quoted  below,  and 
when  we  see  that  the  ultimate  outcome  of  the  in- 
vestigations of  these  critics  is  nothing  more  than  a 
series  of  fresh  variations  of  the  old  theme,  that 
“ literary  criticism  proves  Gen.  xiv.  to  be  of  very 
recent  date”  (Wellhausen,  Op . cit.  p.  312),  we  can 
only  regard  it  as  additional  proof  of  the  hopeless 
bankruptcy  of  their  theories.  The  passage  in  ques- 
tion reads  as  follows — 

Noldeke’s  criticism  (of  Gen.  xiv.)  remains  unshaken  and 
unanswerable  : that  four  kings  from  the  Persian  Gulf 
should,  “in  the  time  of  Abraham  ” have  made  an  incur- 
sion into  the  Sinaitic  Peninsula,  (he  forgets  the  history  of 
Gudea  and  of  the  ancient  Sargon,)  that  they  should  on 
this  occasion  have  attacked  five  kinglets  on  the  Dead  Sea 
littoral  and  have  carried  them  off  prisoners,  and  finally 
that  Abraham  should  have  set  out  in  pursuit  of  the  retreat- 
ing victors,  accompanied  by  318  men-servants,  and  have 
forced  them  to  disgorge  their  prey— all  these  incidents  are 
sheer  impossibilities  which  gain  nothing  in  credibility 
from  the  fact  that  they  are  placed  in  a world  which  had 
passed  away.1 2 

1 Die  Composition  des  Hexateuch's , 2nd  ed.  (with  Appendices)  ] p. 
310 — 312  : Gen.  xiv. 

2 Wellhausen,  Op.  cit.,  p.  311. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  1 99 

At  first,  we  were  assured  that  the  names  of  the 
four  kings  had  been  invented  hap-hazard,  and  that 
Jerusalem  could  not  possibly  have  been  called  Salem 
before  the  time  of  David,  since  prior  to  that  date  its 
name  had  been  simply  Jebus;  the  critics  instead  of 
thankfully  accepting  the  testimony  of  tradition 
which  declares  that  such  kings  did  exist  in  Abra- 
ham’s time,  and  that  the  name  Jerusalem  was  even 
then  current,  had  ignominiously  to  withdraw  their 
false  conclusions  in  presence  of  the  monuments 
proving  the  kings’  names  to  be  correct,  and  the  Tel 
el-Amarna  tablets  shewing  that  even  in  the  year  1400 
B.c.,  i.e.  prior  to  the  time  of  the  Judges,  Jerusalem 
was  known  as  Urusalim.  This  last  name  was  prob- 
ably written  Uru-sa-lim  in  the  cuneiform  original  of 
Gen.  xiv.  (the  element  Uru  being  indicated  by  the 
Sumerian  ideogram  uru  — city).  It  is  possible, 
therefore,  that  the  scribe  who  translated  the  docu- 
ment into  the  Canaanite  idiom  of  Jerusalem  may — 
as  he  mechanically  transliterated  the  name  — have 
taken  the  uru  for  a meaningless  determinative.  Or 
— and  this  is  equally  possible — it  may  have  been  the 
practice  in  those  days  to  use  the  abbreviated  form 
Shalem  in  place  of  Jeru-Shalem.  And  here  I may 
remark  that  the  very  latest  date  at  which  this  trans- 
lation of  Gen.  xiv.  can  have  been  made,  must  have 
been  just  before  the  occupation  of  Canaan  by  the 
Israelites,  or,  in  other  words,  some  time  during  the 
life  of  Moses,  for  after  that  date  there  were  no 
writers  to  be  found  in  Canaan  who  were  familiar 
with  the  Babylonian  script  and  language.  And  now 
that  the  objections  raised  in  regard  to  these  points 


200 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


by  the  critics  of  the  Pentateuch  have  been  demol- 
ished, they  will  doubtless  bring  forward  their  old 
argument  that  Abraham  is  not  an  historical  person- 
age : they  will  assure  us  that  monotheism  of  such  an 
advanced  type  was  unknown  in  pre-Mosaic  times, 
and  that  Abraham  must  necessarily  be  the  creation 
of  a much  later  period.  But  even  this  false  as- 
sumption must  utterly  collapse  in  view  of  the 
evidence  afforded  by  the  Western  Semitic  nomen- 
clature of  the  very  period  in  which  Abraham  lived. 
These  names  are  absolutely  free  from  the  slightest 
taint  of  Fetishism  or  Totemism.  On  the  contrary, 
as  I shall  prove  in  detail  hereafter,  they  are  trust- 
worthy land-marks,  which  enable  us  to  follow  the 
evolution  of  the  religious  history  of  the  Israelites 
from  Abraham  to  Moses,  and  again  from  Moses  to 
David.  They  serve  to  bring  the  truth  of  the  An- 
cient Israelite  tradition  into  an  even  stronger  light 
than  that  shed  by  other  external  historical  evidence, 
scant  enough  it  is  true,  in  so  far  as  the  Mosaic 
period  is  concerned,  though  even  this  latter  demon- 
strates clearly  and  emphatically  enough  the  absurd- 
ity of  supposing  the  compilation  of  the  Priestly 
Code  to  be  the  work  of  post-exilic  times.  I intend 
to  bring  forward  conclusive  proof  of  this  absurdity 
in  the  eighth  and  ninth  chapters. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


201 


CHAPTER  VI 

JACOB  THE  ARAMAEAN 

Midway  between  Abraham  and  Moses  stands  the 
figure  of  the  Patriarch  Jacob,1  (described  in  Deuter- 
onomy xxvi.  5 simply  as  the  Aramaean),  though  it  is 
true  that  the  interval  between  Abraham  and  his 
grandson  Jacob  is  a good  deal  shorter  than  that 
which  separates  Jacob  from  Moses.  As  the  reader 
is  aware,  those  of  Abraham’s  kinsmen  who  remained 
behind  in  Haran  are  coupled  in  Genesis  with  the 
Aramaeans,  and  later  on,  we  find  Isaac,  and  more 
particularly  his  son  Jacob,  again  associated  with 
these  Aramaean  kinsfolk.  Whereas  the  Ammonites 
and  Moabites  (i.e.  the  later  stratum  of  the  races  who 
inhabited  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan)  traced  their 
descent  from  Lot,  the  companion  of  Abraham,  and 
a great  part  of  the  Arabs  (Ishmaelites  and  Keturites) 
from  Abraham  himself,  the  genealogical  tradition 
refers  the  semi-Arabian  Edomites  back  to  Isaac,  and 
thus  makes  them  out  to  be,  as  it  were,  the  brothers 
of  the  Israelites  (Esau  — Edom,  Esau’s  brother  Jacob 
= Israel).  Jacob,  however,  as  Dillmann  well  ex- 
presses it,2  is  allied  with  “ a fresh  strain  from  Ara- 

1 As  to  the  name  Jacob  vide  supra  pp.  95  and  no.  In  the  Babylo- 
nian contract  tablets  we  find  in  addition  to  Ya’kuhi-ilu,  the  abbreviated 
form  Yakubu  also. 

2 Hattdbuch  der  alttestamentt,  Theologie  (1895),  pt  80, 


202 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


maic  Mesopotamia,  who  with  the  remnant  of  the 
original  Hebrew  settlement  in  Canaan  went  to  make 
up  the  twelve  tribes  of  the  people  of  Israel.”  Ac- 
cording to  Dillmann,  it  was  Jacob  who  “ made  his 
home  at  Padan-Aram  (as  Haran  is  called  in  the  nar- 
rative of  the  Priestly  Code),  right  in  the  heart  of 
his  kinsmen,  so  that,  practically,  he  may  be  said  to 
have  drawn  round  him  the  last  remnant  of  the  He- 
brews who  had  not  yet  been  merged  in  the  Aramaic 
stock,  and  to  have  led  them  into  Canaan,”  and  from 
thence  on  to  Bethel ; “ it  is  only  at  the  end  of  all 
these  wanderings  that  Genesis  places  his  reunion 
with  Isaac  and  his  people  in  the  south  at  Hebron 
(Gen.  xxxv.  27 — 29)”.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  Ja- 
cob, as  stated  above,  is  specially  described  as  an 
Aramaean,  a term  which  we  never  find  applied  to 
Abraham. 

In  view  of  this  circumstance,  it  will  not  be  amiss 
to  give  here  a few  details  concerning  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  Aramaeans . In  regard  to  their  language, 
it  was  undoubtedly,  in  Jacob’s  time,  merely  a dialect 
of  Arabic.  What  we  now  call  Aramaic  did  not 
come  into  existence  till  a much  later  date.  The 
Biblical  Aramaic  (sometimes  wrongly  named  Chal- 
daean)  and  Syrian  (or  to  be  more  precise,  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Christians  of  Mesopotamia)  really 
belong  to  the  Persian  and  Christian  eras,  and  even 
these  idioms  are  much  more  nearly  related  to  the 
Arabic,  in  their  grammar  and  vocabulary,  than  they 
are  to  the  Canaanitish  (Phoenician  and  Hebrew). 
The  earliest  Aramaeans  mentioned  in  the  inscrip- 
tions were  a purely  nomadic  race  whose  personal 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  203 

names  present  characteristics  exactly  similar  to 
those  found  in  Arabian  nomenclature.  It  is,  there- 
fore, fairly  safe  to  conclude  that  at  that  time  (i.e.  in 
the  second  millennium  B.C.,  and — to  a certain  extent 
—even  down  to  the  palmy  days  of  the  Assyrian 
Empire)  they  formed  an  integral  part  of  the  great 
Arabian  people. 

We  possess  three  important  sources  of  informa- 
tion in  regard  to  the  history  of  the  Aramaeans. 
First  of  all,  the  cuneiform  monuments;  secondly, 
the  Biblical  tradition ; and  thirdly,  the  earliest  Ara- 
maic inscriptions.  These  last,  however,  do  not 
date  back  further  than  the  end  of  the  8th  century 
B.C.,  and  we  are,  for  the  present,  concerned  with  an 
earlier  period. 

From  the  ancient  Assyrian  monuments  we  learn 
that  as  far  back  as  the  14th  century  B.C.,  in  the  time 
of  the  Assyrian  king  Budi-ilu  (Bodi-el),  an  Aramaic 
tribe  called  the  Achlami  gave  the  Assyrians  a good 
deal  of  trouble.  Salmanasar  I.  (ca.  1300)  made 
more  than  one  campaign  against  the  Aramaeans  in 
Northern  Mesopotamia,  while  Tiglathpileser  I.  (ca. 
1120  B.c.)  makes  pointed  reference  to  “ the  Aramaic 
Achlami”  as  a race  who  dwelt  in  the  desert  along 
the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  from  the  Shuhite  coun- 
try to  a point  northwards  of  Carchemish.  These 
Achlami  would  seem,  therefore,  to  have  been  one 
of  the  principal  Aramaean  tribes  in  the  time  of  the 
ancient  Assyrians.  Even  under  Eri-Aku  of  Larsa, 
a certain  Achlami  (i.e.  the  Achlamite),  son  of  Ilu- 
ashir,  appears  in  the  contract  tablets  as  a witness  ; 
at  that  time  they  had  evidently  settled  farther  to 


204 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


the  south.  The  name  is  a pure  Arabic  one  (A‘lam); 
in  the  Old  Testament  it  is  probably  preserved  in 
Achlamah,  the  name  of  one  of  the  precious  stones 
in  the  High  Priest’s  breast-plate,  and  apparently  also 
in  the  name  of  the  Aramaean  city  Helam  (2  Sam. 
x.  16),  where  the  Aramaeans,  who  were  brought  out 
of  Mesopotamia  by  Hadarezer  from  the  other  side 
of  the  Euphrates,  were  quartered.  The  question 
now  arises,  from  which  part  of  the  Mesopotamian 
desert  or  pasture-lands  were  these  early  Aramaean 
collected  together,  and  at  what  time  did  this  event 
take  place? 

In  answering  this  latter  question,  it  is  of  the  ut- 
most importance  to  remember  that  in  Abraham’s 
time  Mesopotamia  was  known  simply  as  the  region 
of  Haran,  or  Aram  Naharaim  (Aram  of  the  rivers, 
cf.  Na’arim  supra,  p.  155),  whereas  in  the  time  of 
Jacob  (ca.  1750)  it  was  called  Padan  Aram.  It  would 
seem,  therefore,  that  according  to  Biblical  tradition, 
the  immigration  of  the  Aramaeans  into  Mesopotamia 
must  have  taken  place  soon  after  the  death  of  Abra- 
ham, or  at  any  rate  during  the  period  between 
Abraham  and  Jacob.  An  important  clue  is  afforded 
us  by  the  fact  that  Agu-kak-rimi,  one  of  the  Kassite 
kings  of  Babylonia  (p.  136),  who  reigned  somewhere 
about  1650  B.C.,  in  one  of  his  long  inscriptions  styles 
himself  “ king  of  the  Kassites  and  Akkadians  (i.e.  of 
the  Babylonian  Semites),  king  of  the  vast  land  of 
Babylonia,  of  Ashnunnak  ( vide  supra , p.  168)  with  its 
countless  inhabitants,  king  of  Padan  and  of  Alman, 
king  of  the  Guti  (Goiim  in  Gen.  xiv).”  Elsewhere, 
we  find  Arman  (between  the  cities  of  Tsab-ban  i.e< 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  205 


Opis  and  Me-Turnat,  i.e.  the  region  between  the 
lower  Zab  and  the  river  Diyala)  and  Padin  closely 
connected  with  one  another,1  just  as  the  cities  Tsab- 
ban  (written  Ud-ban)  and  Gish-ban2 3  exist  from  the 
earliest  antiquity  ; there  cannot,  therefore,  be  the 
slightest  doubt  that  even  in  the  time  of  Agu-kak- 
rimi  Padan  was  another  name  for  Mesopotamia,  and 
that  the  name  Padan-Aram  (i.e.  Padan  of  the  Ara- 
maeans) in  the  “ Priestly  Code,”  which  is  first  em- 
ployed in  connection  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  rests  on 
a genuine  ancient  tradition  handed  down  from  the 
time  of  the  Patriarchs. 

In  regard  to  the  original  home  of  the  Aramaeans, 
the  answer  to  this  question  is  furnished  by  a passage 
in  the  Biblical  narrative,  which,  though  hitherto 
misunderstood,  becomes  perfectly  clear  when  viewed 
in  the  light  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  the  As- 
syrian kings. 

The  prophet  Amos,  ix.  7,  in  speaking  of  Yahveh, 
says,  “ Have  not  I brought  up  Israel  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt  and  the  Philistines  from  Caphtor  (probably 
Crete)  and  the  Syrians  (i.e.  Aramaeans)  from  Kir?" 
Now,  in  Isaiah  xxii.  6,  we  are  clearly  shewn  the 
direction  in  which  we  must  look  for  the  unknown 
land  of  Kir.8 

We  find  there,  as  a parallel  to  the  sentence,  “ And 
Elam  bare  the  quiver,  with  chariots  of  men  and 

1 Cf.  W.  A.  I.  v.  12,  No.  6,  Shaggan  (?)  of  the  goddess  Eulala,  Syn- 
onym W.  A.  I.  ii.  60,  No.  1,  line  26,  Pan-ki,  i.e.  Gishban  and  “ Shaggan 
(?),  which  lies  before  mount  Arman  (and  therefore  in  the  plain  ”)  = Padin. 

2 The  “City  of  the  Bow,’’  which  Hilprecht  identifies  with  Haran. 

3 With  a strong  £-sound  {i.e.  like  the  Hebrew  Hr  ~ wall). 


206 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


horsemen,”  the  supplementary  clause,  “ and  Kir  un- 
covered the  shield.”  From  this  it  follows  that  the 
birthplace  of  the  Aramaeans  must  have  been  in  close 
proximity  to  Elam.  And,  as  a matter  of  fact,  the 
Assyrian  inscriptions  of  the  8th  and  7th  centuries 
B.c.  mention  a whole  host  of  nomadic  Aramaean 
tribes  who  inhabited  the  narrow  strip  of  desert  be- 
tween the  Tigris  and  the  Elamite  Highlands,  and 
who  extended  from  the  Persian  Gulf  in  the  south- 
east to  Bagdad  in  the  north-west — and  even  beyond 
as  far  as  Mesopotamia.  These  Aramaeans  would 
seem  to  have  offered  the  same  resistance  to  Baby- 
lonian civilization  as  was  always  displayed  by  the 
Beduin  Arab  tribes  in  Palestine. 

The  more  important  of  these  Aramaean  tribes 
seem  to  have  been  the  Itu’a,  Rubu’u,  Charilu,  Lab- 
dudu  and  Chamranu,  on  the  north-west,  and  Ru’ua,1 
Li’itau,  Damunu,  Chindaru,  Ubulu,  Pukudu 2 and 
Gam bu lu 3 on  the  east.  Other  Aramaean  tribes 
were  the  Luchu’atu,  Rabi-ilu,  Nabatu,4  Rummulutu 
(cf.  Arab,  ramal  = sand),  .Malichu,  Kibri,  Rapiku 
(pronounced  with  a strong  ^-sound),  etc.;  one  of  their 
districts  is  also  named  Birtu  (Veste)  ska  sciragiti, 
which  Glaser  rightly  connects  with  the  Biblical 

1 According  to  Glaser,  the  Re'u  mentioned  in  Genesis  xi.  19. 

2 The  Pekod  referred  to  in  Ezekiel  xxiii.  23. 

3 The  Arabian  Junbula  in  the  morasses  of  the  deltas  of  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates— cf.  Fr.  Delitzsch’s  exhaustive  comparison  in  Wo  lag  das 
Parodies?  pp.  238—241. 

4 The  forefathers  of  the  Nabataean  tribes  who  afterward  migrated  into 
North  West  Arabia  ; the  Biblical  Nebayoth,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
identical  with  the  Nabayati  of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  cf.  Glaser, 
Skizze,  II.  pp.  12  et.  seq.,  248  and  274. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  207 


Serug  (Gen.  xi.  21).  These  names  are  manifestly  of 
the  same  type  as  the  personal  names  of  the  Kham- 
murabi  period,  modified,  to  a certain  extent,  by 
later  changes  in  pronunciation.  Thus  Yatu’a  is 
practically  identical  with  the  Arabic  Y athuTi ; 1 Kibri 
is  allied  with  Yakbar-ilu  (p.  111),  Nabatu  with  Nabti 
(p.  142),  Rabi-ilu  with  Ilu-Rabbi  (p.  81),  Luchu’atu 
with  the  South  Arabian  Luhai-'Atht2  and  Charilu  is 
probably  another  form  of  Khali-ilu  (p.  84).  It  seems 
quite  possible,  therefore,  that  these  Babylonian 
Aramaeans  of  the  Elamite  frontier,  were  descendants 
of  the  Arabs  who  founded  the  Khammurabi  dynasty, 
or  at  any  rate  of  that  section  of  them  who  did  not 
become  naturalized  Babylonians.  Even  if  there  be  a 
difficulty  about  adopting  this  conclusion,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  admit  that  they  must  have  been  descend- 
ants of  near  relatives  of  theirs.  It  would  seem,  then, 
that  from  the  very  earliest  times  onwards  the  desert 
region  to  the  east  of  the  lower  Tigris,  and  also,  more 
particularly,  that  part  of  South  Babylonia  which 
lay  between  Shatt-el-Hai  and  the  Tigris,  was  the 
resort  of  a race  of  Semitic  nomads,  who  must  have 
originally  come  from  Arabia.  The  name  Su-gir  or 
Gir-su  which  appears  even  in  the  earliest  Sumerian 
inscriptions  as  the  title  of  the  region  east  of  Shatt- 
el-Hai  is  shewn  by  these  alternative  forms— -Gir-su 


1 Mentioned  on  p.  83.  Cf.  -yathu'a  in  Abi-yathu'a,  pronounced 
Abishu'a  in  Ancient  Babylonian  and  Ancient  Hebrew,  while  on  the  other 
hand  we  find  Abi-yati'u  as  the  name  of  the  chief  of  the  Arabian  tribe  of 
Kedar  in  the  time  of  Assurbanipal  (700  B.C.). 

2 Afterwards  Luhai'at,  just  as  Rabbi- Atht  later  on  became  Rabi'at, 
cf.  also  p.  79  supra , and  [Beer]  lahairoi  in  Gen.  xvi.  14. 


208 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


and  Su-gir — to  be  clearly  a compound  of  two — at 
one  time  independent  — words,  one  of  which  (Su) 
has  long  been  known  as  the  name  of  the  nomads  who 
dwelt  on  the  lower  Tigris  and  in  Mesopotamia.1 
Extended  forms  of  this  name  Su  are  found  in  Suti2 
and  Su-bar.3  The  first  of  these  words  Suti  had,  as 
we  learn  from  the  Tel  el-Amarna  texts,  come  to  be 
used  as  a general  term  for  the  Beduin  by  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  millennium  B.c.  In  the  letters 
written  from  Palestine,  for  instance,  the  Syrian 
Beduin  are  sometimes  called  Sagas,  sometimes  Suti. 
Both  words  were  borrowed  from  the  Ancient  Egyp- 
tians, the  original  form  of  the  first  being  Sha’asu,  of 
the  second  Sute  (written  Sutet).  The  other  word, 
Subar,  therefore,  was  used  more  particularly  of 
Aramaean  Mesopotamia,4  the  name  of  the  county 
of  Syria  being  probably  derived  from  a later  form 
Suri.  In  view  of  the  facts  recorded  above,  we  need 
scarcely  hesitate  to  assert  that  the  other  element  of 
the  word  Sugir  or  Girsu,viz.  Gir,  must  be  the  orig- 
inal form  of  the  Biblical  Kir. 

The  most  important  point  established  by  an  exam- 
ination of  these  facts  is,  that  the  migration  of  the 
Aramaean  nomads  into  Mesopotamia  from  their 
original  home  in  Kir  (or  Gir),  between  Elam  and 
Babylonia,  must  have  taken  place5  in  the  first  half 


JThe  Assyro-Eabylonian  lists  translate  Sugir  both  by  “ Subartu  ” 
and  by  “ Elamtu  ; ” cf.  Delitzsch,  Paradies , p.  234. 

2 Cf.  Guti  from  Gu,  and  Goiim  in  Gen.  xiv.  3 bar  = desert. 

4 Cf.  Subartu , the  name  of  a country,  Shtibard,  the  adjective  formed 
from  it. 

6 It  is  at  this  time,  too,  (viz.  at  the  beginning  of  the  so-called  “La'er 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  209 


of  the  second  millennium  B.C.,  about  100  years  before 
Agukakrimi,  or,  in  other  words,  at  the  very  period 
when,  according  to  the  Biblical  tradition,  the  Ara- 
maeans (Jacob  and  Laban)  entered  Mesopotamia. 

In  conclusion,  I must  not  forget  to  point  out  that 
the  journey  of  Abraham  and  his  family  from  Ur 
Kashdim  (i.e.  Ur  of  the  Chaldees),  in  South  Baby- 
lonia, to  Haran  in  Mesopotamia,  must  be  regarded 
as  a kind  of  prototype  of  that  greater  migration  of 
the  Aramaic  nomads  which  afterwards  ensued  from 
the  land  of  Kir  into  Mesopotamia.  Though  preced- 
ing this  latter  in  point  of  time,  it  followed  a parallel 
route;  for  the  road  from  Ur  to  Haran  lies  along  the 
banks  of  the  Euphrates,  while  that  from  the  land  of 
Kir  to  Mesopotamia,  on  the  other  hand,  rather  fol- 
lows the  course  of  the  Tigris.  Ur  was  the  only 
Babylonian  city  of  any  importance  on  the  western 
bank  of  the  Euphrates.  The  narrow  strip  of  country 
between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Arabian  desert, 
from  Borsippa  in  the  north  to  the  Persian  Gulf  in 
the  south,  and  the  region  between  the  mouths  of  the 

Empire,”)  that  we  find  the  name  Sute  applied  by  the  Egyptians  to  the 
Asiatic  Beduin  (and  then  to  Asiatics  generally),  a use  of  the  name  which 
presupposes  an  advance  on  the  part  of  the  Sute  from  the  lower  Tigris 
into  Mesopotamia.  Under  the  Ancient  Empire  the  word  Sute  (or  Sethet) 
possessed  quite  a different  meaning  (cf.  Max  Muller,  Asien  und Europa)  ; 
the  Egyptian  Sute  = Beduin,  Asiatics,  is,  as  Jensen  points  out,  a Babylo- 
nian loan-word.  In  the  time  of  the  Middle  Empire  {vide  supra , p.  50) 
seti,  in  spite  of  its  application  to  the  Beduin  of  Palestine,  would  seem 
nevertheless  to  have  been  a common  Egyptian  word  for  “ archers  ” (cf. 
Max  Muller)  ; or  is  it  possible  that  the  Egyptians  may  have  first  heard 
of  the  Suti  at  that  date  (possibly  through  the  Babylonians  who  had 
dealings  with  Palestine  in  the  time  of  the  later  kings  of  Ur,  cf.  supra , 
pp.  37  et  seq.)t 
14 


210 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Tigris  and  Euphrates  at  the  lower  extremity  of 
Southern  Babylonia,  was  known  to  the  Babylonians 
as  the  land  of  Kaldu.  This  name,  Kaldu,  was  origi- 
nally Kashdu,  then  (as  early  as  the  second  millenni- 
um B.c.)Kardu,  from  which  the  kings  of  the  Kassite 
dynasty  obtained  the  designation  Karduniash,  and 
finally  (certainly  from  the  ninth  century  B.c.  on- 
wards) Kaldu  (whence  the  Greek  XaXBaloi  = Chal- 
daeans).  To  this  original  form  Kashdu  we  owe  the 
Hebrew  Kashdim,  which  is  preserved  in  three  dis- 
tinct traditions,  viz.  in  Urkasdim,1  then  in  the  syn- 
onymous Ar-pa-keshad  (Arphaxad),2  and  finally  in 
the  name  Chesed,  one  of  the  tribes  descended  from 
Nahor,  the  brother  of  Abraham,  and  mentioned  in 
the  genealogical  table  in  Gen.  xxii.  22.  This  at  once 
furnishes  us  with  fresh  proof  of  the  fact,  that  the 
Hebrew  tradition  which  designates  Ur-Kasdim  as 
the  original  home  of  Abraham,  dates  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  millennium  B.C.,  i.e.  from  the  time 
of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty  and  of  Abraham  him- 
self ; for  a few  centuries  later,  we  find  the  name 
Kashdu  replaced  by  Kardu,  and  at  the  time  of  the 
Captivity,  Kaldu  had  long  been  the  only  term  in 
general  use.  The  boundaries  of  the  land  of  Kashdu 
have  already  been  given;  on  the  south-east  they 
were  conterminous  with  those  of  the  Aramaean 
tribes  who  dwelt  in  the  land  of  Kir.  For,  in  the  As- 

1 Spelt  with  the  letter  “Sin,”  which  was,  however,  originally  pro- 
nounced “ sh.” 

2 See  my  note  on  The  Ethnological  Table  of  Genesis  x.  in  the  Academy 
of  Oct.  17,  1896.  Ar - (originally  Or-?)  corresponds  to  Ur-;  as  to 
the  fa  Between  Ar  and  Keshad , see  what  is  said  in  Chapter  ix.  infra. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


2 1 1 


Syrian  inscriptions  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  the 
city  of  Amlilatu  is  given  as  the  place  of  Bit  Sha’alli, 
a minor  Chaldaean  state,  while  the  same  place  (writ- 
ten as  Amlatu)  is  described  as  the  capital  of  the  Ara- 
maean tribe  of  the  Damunu ; similarly  Sapiya  or 
Shapia  the  capital  of  the  Chaldaean  state  Bit-Amuk- 
kan,  and  Shapi-Bel,  the  capital  of  the  Gambulu,  one  of 
the  southernmost  Aramaean  tribes,  are  probably  des- 
ignations of  the  same  place.  And  this  must  proba- 
bly have  been  the  case  even  as  far  back  as  the  time  of 
Khammurabi ; to  the  east  of  Ur  the  pastoral  districts 
of  Kashdu  must  have  been  directly  conterminous 
with  the  south-western  pastoral  area  of  the  so-called 
Aramaean  nomads  of  Kir.  And  here  again,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  lay  special  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  these 
latter  did  not  develop  in  Mesopotamia  into  what  are 
historically  known  as  Aramaeans,  until  later  on,  and 
at  this  time  were,  so  far  as  language  went,  still  pure 
Arabs,  just  as  Abraham’s  people  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Ur  must  have  been  at  first.  Moreover,  the 
direct  geographical  connection  is  clearly  established 
between  Arabia  and  the  ancient  Kashdu  territory — 
which  latter,  in  its  turn,  was  closely  related  with  the 
ancient  Aramaean  home-land,  Kir — through  the  so- 
called  “ country  of  the  sea,”  1 which  was  regarded  by 
the  Assyrians  as  part  of  Kaldu.  This  “ country  of 
the  sea  ” lay  to  the  south-east  of  Ur,  somewhat  to 
the  westward  of  the  modern  Basra,  and  extended 
apparently  as  far  south  as  Bahrein. 

The  subsequent  history  of  the  Aramaeans,  viz. 
their  advance  across  the  Euphrates  into  Syria 

1 Afterwards  Bic-Yakin,  the  home  of  the  famous  Merodach-baladan. 


212 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


(Damascus),  belongs  to  the  time  of  David,  and  is 
therefore  outside  the  scope  of  our  present  inquiry. 
It  was  only  from  this  later  period  onwards  that  their 
language  began  to  diverge  more  and  more  from  the 
Arabic  mother-tongue.  In  the  time  of  Tiglathpile- 
ser  III.  (eighth  century  B.C.),  we  find  them  advanc- 
ing northwards  as  far  as  Mar'ash  on  the  Syro- 
Cilician  frontier;  there,  as  the  Zinjerli  inscriptions 
discovered  by  F.  de  Luschan  prove,  Aramaic 
contended  for  the  upper-hand  with  the  Canaanitish 
language.  And  about  600  B.C.,  at  Teima  in  North 
Arabia,  where  Euting  discovered  Aramaic  inscrip- 
tions on  monuments  of  a pure  Assyrian  type,  we  find 
the  Aramaic  idiom  in  possession  of  nearly  all  the 
characteristics  by  which  the  later  Aramaic  is  dis- 
tinguished. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  21 3 


CHAPTER  VII 

PALESTINE  IN  THE  TEL  EL-AMARNA  PERIOD 

The  Patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  were 
merely  nomadic  aliens  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  their 
stay  there  being  but  a passing  visit.  Their  descend- 
ants migrated  into  the  land  of  Goshen  in  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  Nile  delta,  where  they  dwelt  four 
hundred  years,  until  they  were  led  thence  by  Moses, 
to  wander  for  forty  years  through  the  Sinaitic  penin- 
sula and  Moab ; at  length,  in  the  time  of  Joshua,  they 
reached  and  settled  in  Palestine,  especially  in  the 
portion  of  it  west  of  the  Jordan,  which  was  hence- 
forward to  be  their  permanent  home.  In  regard  to 
the  long  period  during  which  the  Israelites  so- 
journed in  Egypt,  tradition  seems  to  be  entirely  si- 
lent ; only  at  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  this  period 
does  the  book  of  Exodus  vouchsafe  us  any  infor- 
mation. We  have  been  amply  compensated  for  the 
absence  of  tradition,  however,  by  the  discovery  of 
cuneiform  records  of  the  correspondence  between  a 
number  of  Egyptian  viceroys  of  Palestine  and  Syria 
and  the  Pharaohs  Amenothes  III.  and  IV.  (ca.  1400 
B.c.).  For  the  purposes  of  our  investigations,  it  is  of 
the  utmost  importance  that  we  should  learn  some- 
thing of  the  history  of  the  land  promised  to  the 
people  of  Israel,  during  the  time  covered  by  their 


214 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


stay  in  Goshen  ; and  from  these  contemporary  docu- 
ments, which  are  of  the  highest  authenticity,  we  are 
able  to  get  a glimpse  at  the  condition  of  Palestine 
before  Joshua  led  his  people  across  the  Jordan. 

In  the  present  chapter  we  must  carry  our  investi- 
gations into  the  early  history  of  Palestine,  which  has 
been  already  dealt  with  in  Chapter  II.,  a step  farther. 
In  that  chapter  we  explained  how  the  Babylonian 
script  and  language  came  to  be  used  as  late  as  1400 
B.c.  in  correspondence  with  the  Pharaohs,  by  the 
people  of  a country  which,  though  nominally  Egyp- 
tian, really  belonged  to  the  Canaanite  branch  of  the 
Western  Semites  (cf.  supra  p.  45).  Frequent  refer- 
ence has  already  been  made  in  the  present  volume 
to  the  Tel  el-Amarna  texts  and  the  Tel  el-Amarna 
period  (as  the  epoch  in  question  is  now  generally 
termed),  the  last  occasion  being  in  Chapter  V.,  when 
we  discussed  Melchizedek  and  the  office  of  Priest- 
king  ( vide  supra  pp.  154  et  seq).  In  this  seventh 
chapter  no  attempt  will  be  made  to  give  an  exhaus- 
tive description  either  of  the  geography  of  Palestine 
at  that  time  or  of  the  social  condition  of  its  people 
as  presented  in  the  texts  in  question.  Those  who 
take  a special  interest  in  these  matters  can  obtain 
full  information  from  various  books  and  treatises  on 
the  subject,  and  especially  from  Winckler’s 1 excellent 


1 Schrader,  Keilinschr.  Bill.  vol.  v.  (Eng.  Ed.  London,  1897) ; cf. 
also  the  instructive  papers  by  H.  Zimmern,  Paldstina  um  das  Jahr 
1400  nach  neuen  Quellen , Zeitschrift  des  Deutschen  Pal.  - Vereins,  vol. 
xiii.  (1891)  pp.  133 — 147,  and  A.  J.  Delattre,  Le  pays  de  Chanaan , 
province  de  l ancien  e?npire  Egyptien , Paris,  1896  (extracted  from  the 
Revue  des  questions  historiques , July),  93  pp.  8vo. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  21$ 

translation  (accompanied  by  a reproduction  of  the 
transcribed  text),  which  is  now  obtainable  in  both 
German  and  English.  For  our  present  purpose,  our 
concern  will  be  with  answers  to  the  following  ques- 
tions: (i)  Was  the  language  spoken  in  Palestine  at 
that  period,  the  idiom  most  nearly  allied  to  the 
Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament,  viz.  the  Phoenicio- 
Canaanite?  (2)  What  kind  of  personal  names  were 
borne  by  the  native  viceroys  and  princes  who  were 
tributary  to  the  Egyptians?  and  (3)  What  was  the 
nature  of  their  religious  belief? 

In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  questions,  the  Ca- 
naanisms  which  occur  with  comparative  frequency 
in  the  Tel  el-Amarna  letters  written  from  Syria  and 
Palestine  prove  1 conclusively  that  in  1400  B.c.  Ca- 
naanite  was  a language  almost  identical  with  He- 
brew. Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  vowels  are  given 
in  the  cuneiform  script,  we  learn,  among  other 
things,  that  even  at  that  time  the  pronoun  “ I ” was 
pronounced  anoki,  with  the  characteristic  Hebrew 
softening  of  the  long  a into  6 (cf.  Babyl.  anakit,  Hebr. 
anoki),  for  it  was  written  a-nu-ki,  which,  since  the 
cuneiform  script  only  possesses  a single  symbol  for 
both  nu  and  no,  can,  of  course,  be  read  only  as  anoki. 
Other  interesting  Canaanisms,  which  frequently  ap- 
pear in  the  form  of  glosses  inserted  side  by  side 
with  the  Babylonian  words,  are  abitu  = I hearken 
(Hebr.  abiti , cf.  ashirti  — I send),  obel  belet  ( vide  supra , 
p.  155)  = Tribute-bearer,  skate  = Field  (Hebr.  sadeh , 

1 Proof  of  this  fact  is  also  afforded  by  the  Phoenician  inscriptions  (for 
the  most  part  of  later  date),  and  by  the  Canaanite  loan-words  found  in 
Egyptian  texts  of  the  so-called  Later  Empire. 


216 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


written  with  the  letter  “ Sin  ”),  khapara  and  aparu 
— Dust  (Hebr.  'aphar), yidi  — he  knows,  and  a num- 
ber of  other  forms  beginning  with  the  imperfect 
prefix  yz  (cf.  p.  60  supra),  Shamima  — Heaven  (Hebr. 
shamayim ),  rushunu  — our  head  (Hebr.  roshenu ),  tsa- 
duk  — he  is  righteous,  and  many  others.  These 
forms  appearing,  as  they  do,  at  the  end  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  B.C.,  have  a most  important  bearing 
on  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  language — indeed,  it 
would  be  more  correct  to  say  on  the  history  of  the 
Phoenicio- Canaanite  language.  For  it  becomes 
clearer  every  day  that  the  Hebrews  of  the  patri- 
archal period,  and  even  down  to  the  time  of  Moses 
and  Joshua,  did  not  use  the  Canaanite  speech  — a 
fact  which  may  be  readily  proved  by  a careful  ex- 
amination of  their  personal  names  ; 1 it  was  not  until 
after  the  conquest  of  the  region  west  of  the  Jordan 
that  they  adopted  the  language  of  the  subjugated 
Canaanites.  This  fact  is  brought  out  still  more 
clearly  by  certain  characteristic  divergences  from 
the  ancient  Arabic  and  Hebrew  personal  names, 
observable  in  the  early  Canaanite  nomenclature  of 
the  Tel  el-Amarna  texts,  which  we  will  now  pro- 
ceed to  briefly  examine. 

Prior  to  the  discovery  of  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tab- 
lets, Ave  already  possessed  valuable  information  on 
this  point,  obtained  from  cuneiform  texts  of  the 
ninth  to  the  seventh  centuries  B.C.,  viz.  from  the  in- 
scriptions of  the  Assyrian  kings.  These  inscriptions 
are  of  special  importance  owing  to  the  fact  that 
they  give  the  vowels,  whereas  the  Phoenician  in- 

1 Cf.  also  what  has  been  said  above  on  pp.  119  et  seq. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


217 


scriptions,  which  belong,  for  the  most  part,  to  a 
later  period,  give  the  consonants  only.  We  had 
already  obtained  from  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  a 
knowledge  of  such  names  as  Matan-Ba'al,  Abi-Ba'al, 
Adoni-Ba  al  ( = my  Lord  is  Baal),  Azi-Ba'al,  Budi- 
Ba'al  (otherwise  Bu di-el)  Ba'al-khanunu  (cf.  Cartha- 
ginian Hanni-Ba'al,  Hannibal) — these  all  come  from 
Arvad  in  North  Phoenicia  — also  Abi-milki  and 
Akhi-milki  (Arvad,  Tyre  and  southward  as  far  as 
Ashdod),  'Abdi-milkut  (Sidon),  Akhi-ram  (Yakhir, 
in  Northern  Mesopotamia,  cf.  Hiram  of  Tyre,  in  the 
time  of  Solomon),  Uru-milki  (Gebal),  Milkiuri  (Mel- 
chior), Milki-ashapa  (Hebr.  -asaph),  'Ammi-Ba'al, 
Sapati-Ba'al  (cf.  Hebr.  shaphat  — to  judge),  etc.,  etc. 
Apart  from  the  prevalence  of  the  divine  name  Ba'al, 
these  names  contain  elements  which  are  either  en- 
tirely foreign  to  the  earliest  Hebrew  and  Arabic 
nomenclature,  such  as  matan  (originally  mattan  — 
gift?)  adoni  (=  my  lord),  khantin  (=  beloved),  or 
which,  as  in  the  case  of  milk  — king  (Hebr.  melek , 
Arab.  maliU),  occur  but  rarely. 

An  almost  exactly  similar  view  of  Canaanite  names 
is  furnished  us  by  the  Tel  el-Amarna  letters,  the 
only  difference  being  that  in  these  latter  we  have 
the  great  advantage  of  being  carried  back  to  a 
period  as  early  as  1400  B.C.,  that  is,  to  a time  when 
the  Hebrews  were  still  settled  in  Egypt.  In  these 
letters  we  come  upon  such  names  as  Adon  (written 
Aduna,  cf.  Adoni-Ba'al  supra),  Milkuru  (cf.  Milki- 
uri), Ammu-nira,1  Abd-milki  (or-milkuti  ?),  Abi-milki, 

1 Variant,  Khamu-niri,  cf.  Hebr.  Abi-ner  and  Abner  = my  father  is 
light,  in  the  time  of  David. 


218 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Rib-Addi  (variants,  Rib-Khaddi  and  Rabi-Addi),  in 
which  the  divine  name,  usually  transcribed  as  Addit 
is  represented  by  the  ideogram  of  the  Babylonian 
storm-god  (Ramman  or  Bel),  as  also  in  the  names 
Addu-mikhir,  Pu-Addi,  Mut-Addi,  Shipti-Addu, 
Yapakhi-Addu  and  Yapa-Addu,  Natan- Addu  (or 
Matan-Addi  ?),  Shamu-Addu  and  Shum-Addi,  etc. 
The  name  'Abd-Ashirti  (variants,  'Abd-Ashrati  and 
'Abd-Ashtarti),  is  also  of  special  interest  to  the  stu- 
dent of  religious  history,  since  it  suggests  that  the 
deity  Asherah,  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament, 
must  even  at  that  time  have  been  worshipped  in 
Coele-Syria  (cf.  p.  1 56) ; similarly  we  find  a name,  I- 
takkama1  (variants,  Ai-daggama  and  I-tagama), 
which  presents  some  analogy  with  those  2 mentioned 
on  pp.  1 15  et  seq.;  in  addition,  we  have  Dagan- 
takala  = Dagon  helps,  and  finally  Anati  (cf.  Hebr. 
' Anath , Judges  iii.  31),  which  contains  the  name  of 
the  Canaanite  goddess  'Anat.  The  only  thing  which 
surprises  us  is  that  the  name  of  Ba'al,  the  chief  of 
the  Canaanite  gods,  does  not  enter  into  a single  one 
of  these  names.  Fortunately,  however,  we  learn 
from  the  Egyptian  records  of  the  Later  Empire,3 
that  the  principal  Canaanite  gods  of  that  period 


1 Cf.  also  the  place-name,  Ya-nuamma  (Egypt.  I-nu'am),  with  Abi- 
no'am,  Judges  v.  12,  and  the  personal  name,  Ya-biuri  (=  Yah  is  my  por- 
tion ?). 

2 The  Phoenician  form  was  probably  Ai-da'ama  — Ai  supports  or  sus- 
tains, cf.  the  name  Da'am-melek,  which  appears  in  a Phoenician  inscrip- 
tion. 

3 i.e.  in  the  1 8th  or  19th  dynasty,  and  therefore  to  a certain  extent 
contemporary. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  2IQ 


were  Baal,1  Resheph,2  'An at  and  Astarte.3  Now, 
when  we  come  to  reflect  that  of  the  above-men- 
tioned names,  compounded  with  the  ideographic 
element  Addu  (which  may  also  be  read  either  as 
Ramman  or  Bel),  there  is  only  one,  viz.  Rib-Addi, 
in  which  it  is  certain  that  Addu  is  the  correct 
reading,4  and  that  the  names  Addu-mikhir  and 
Ba'al-maher,  Shamu  - Addu  and  Sham-Ba'al,  are 
doubtless  identical,  there  seems  ample  ground  for 
assuming  that  in  many  of  the  Canaanitish  names, 
Addu  is  simply  an  ideogram  for  Ba'al,  this  latter 
name  being  etymologically  equivalent  to  the  Baby- 
lonian Bel.  In  that  case  we  obtain  the  following 
additional  equations:  Shipti-Addu  = Sapati-Baal, 
Addu-dayan  = Baal-shaphat,  Mut-Addi  = Ish-Ba'al 
and  Natan-Addu  — Mattan-Ba'al.  Hadad 5 6 was  a 
special  name  applied  to  the  god  Ba'al,  the  use  of 
which  was,  in  primitive  times,  evidently  confined  to 
North  Phoenicia,  e.g.  at  Gebal,  the  birth-place  of 
Rib-Addi ; in  the  time  of  Assur-natsirpal  (9th  cent. 
B.c.),  we  find  this  appellation  on  the  Upper  Tigris,  in 
the  name  Giri-Dadi  (cf.  Phoenic.  Ger-Ashtoreth, 
Ger-melek,  etc.),  and  about  the  same  time,  or  even 
earlier,  among  the  Aramaeans  of  Damascus  ; in  the 
reign  of  Tiglathpileser,  too,  (8th  cent.  B.c.)  Hadad 
was  the  principal  god  of  Sam'al  in  the  extreme  north, 

1 Also  in  personal  names,  e.g.  Ba'al-Ram,  Sham-Ba'al,  Ba'al-maher. 

2 The  Lightning  and  Storm  god,  a manifestat ion  form  of  Ba'al. 

3 Cf.  W.  Max  Muller,  Asien  und  Europa,  pp.  315— 319. 

4 That  in  this  name  it  really  is  equivalent  to  Addi  is  shown  by  the 

variants,  Ri-ib-Kha-ad-di,  Kt-ib- Ad-da,  Ri-ib-Ad-di,  Ri-ib-Id-di. 

6 In  the  cuneiform  texts  it  appears  as  Khaddi,  Addu  and  Dadda. 


220 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


where  the  population  was  a mixed  Canaanite  and 
Aramaean  one.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  name 
would  seem  to  have  been  first  introduced  by  the 
Aramaeans  ; it  is  never  found  among  genuine  Phoe- 
nician names,  and  does  not  occur  even  in  Egyptian 
inscriptions  of  the  later  Empire.  In  structure,  it  is 
undoubtedly  akin  to  the  South  Arabian  Wadd  (p. 
79),  so  that  Hadad  is  probably  a later  form  of  Ho- 
dad. 

An  examination  of  the  Canaanite  personal  names, 
preserved  in  the  Tel  el-Amarna  texts,  leads  us, 
therefore,  to  the  conclusion  that  even  as  far  back  as 
1500  B.c.  the  personal  names  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Palestine  presented  essentially  the  same  character- 
istics of  form  and  meaning  as  are  to  be  found  in 
Phoenician  names  of  a later  period.  It  was  only  in 
Southern  Palestine  that  Arabian  names  still  pre- 
vailed, such  as  Yapakhi  (of  Gezer)  — Yapa'i  (cf. 
Yapi'u.  p.  83),  Zimrida  (of  Lachish)  = Zimri-yadaf 
(p.  83,  note  2),  Yabni-ilu  (also  of  Lachish),  Yapti’- 
Addu,  with  the,  here,  somewhat  curious  variant, 
Yapti-Khada,1  and  a few  others.  An  almost  precise- 
ly similar  state  of  things  is  to  be  found  among  the 
names  of  the  kings  of  Southern  Canaan  in  the  book 

1 Cf.  the  names  Hadad  and  Be-Dad  (a  formation  similar  to  Bi-' Ash- 
tar),  among  the  ancient  Edomites  (Gen.  xxxvi.  35)  ; that  such  names  are 
due  to  Aramaean  influence  is  rendered  probable  by  the  Aramaean  origin 
of  many  of  these  ancient  Edomite  princes  mentioned  in  Genesis  xxxvi., 
e.g.  Bela'  ( — Bil'am  of  Pethor  on  the  Euphrates,  cf.  p.  152)  and  Sha'ul 
of  Rehoboth  of  the  River  (i.e.  of  the  Euphrates).  Dinhabah,  too,  (LXX. 
AewajSa)  the  name  of  Bela’s  city,  reminds  us  of  Syria  (Dunib  in  the  land 
of  Naharaim,  which  was  the  capital  of  an  extensive  region);  in  that  case 
Dinhabah  and  Pethor  would  be  early  variants  like  Bela'  and  Bil'am. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 


221 


of  Joshua,  where  (Josh.  x.  3)  we  also  meet  with 
a number  of  pure  Arabic  names.1  Another  very  in- 
teresting fact  is  that  the  Egyptian  plenipotentiary 
in  Palestine  and  Syria,  who  must  have  been  a kind 
of  governor,  bears  the  pure  Arabian  name  of  Yan- 
khamu  ( = Yan'am).  Later  on,  in  the  time  of  the 
kings  of  Israel,  a totally  different  state  of  things  ob- 
tained in  South-West  Palestine.  By  that  time  the 
Canaanite  element  had  entirely  displaced  the  Ara- 
bian, a fact  which  is  proved  by  the  names  of  the 
princes  of  Ashdod,  Gaza  and  Ashkelon.2  From  this 
we  can  see  how  accurate  and  trustworthy  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  book  of  Joshua  really  is,  and  how  little 
foundation  there  is  for  the  distrust  with  which 
modern  critics  are  pleased  to  regard  it. 

As  to  the  third  question  propounded  on  p.  215,  in 
reference  to  the  religious  belief  which  obtained  in 
Palestine  at  this  period,  our  survey  of  the  personal 
names  has  already  supplied  an  answer.  Astarte 
and  Ba'al3  hold  the  first  place,  the  latter  frequently 
appearing  under  his  characteristic  names,  Adon  — 
Lord,  and  Milk  or  Melek  (cf.  later  Melk-kart)  = King, 
the  former  under  the  name  Asherah,  so  familiar  to 


1 E.g.  Hoham  of  Hebron,  Pir'am  of  J irmuth,  Japhi'  a of  Lacliish,  and 
Debir  of  Eglon  ; cf.  also  Horam  of  Gezer,  LXX.  A The  final  m in 
this  name  being  an  instance  of  Arabic  mimation  ; Hoham  is  identical  with 
the  Minaean  name  Hauhum  (beginning  with  the  guttural  aspirate),  and 
Pir’am  with  Pir'u , which  was  the  name  of  an  Arabian  king  under  Sargon. 
A more  correct 'vocalization  is  that  in  Milkom,  the  name  of  the  god  of 
'Ammon. 

2 Mitinti,  Akhi-milki,  Khanunu,  Tsil-Bel  = Tsel-Ra'al. 

3 In  the  majority  of  these  personal  names,  as  already  indicated,  the 
ideogram  Ramman-Bel,  or  Addu,  can  only  be  intended  for  Ba'al. 


222 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


readers  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  goddess  'Anat 
also  occurs,  and  there  are  occasional  traces  of  a 
god  named  Ai  or  Ya,  who  was  apparently  an  Ara- 
bian importation,  and  lastly  of  a god  Yara  or  Ari,1 
who  is  probably  identical  with  Ari,  in  the  O.  T. 
Ariel. 

When  we  compare  this  early  Canaanite  religion 
with  that  of  the  other  Western  Semites,  as  present- 
ed to  us  in  the  personal  names  of  the  Arabs  of  the 
Khammurabi  dynasty  and  in  South  Arabian  nomen- 
clature, we  are  at  once  struck  by  the  wide  and  essen- 
tial difference  between  them.  For  though  the  com- 
position of  their  personal  names  is  evidently  governed 
by  the  Western  Semitic  principles  of  formation2  the 
religion  of  the  Canaanites  appears  to  be  thoroughly 
impregnated  by  Babylonian  ideas,  and  indeed  to  a 
far  greater  extent  than  we  find  to  be  the  case  with 
the  religion  of  the  South  Arabian  peoples.  There, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  element  'Astar  enters  into  com- 
paratively few  personal  names,  whereas  here  names 
compounded  with  Ba'al  (=  Babyl.  Belu)  and  Astarte 
are  the  rule.  In  Phoenician  names  (including  those 
of  later  times),  even  'El  is  almost  entirely  displaced 
by  Baal  and  Adon,  two  divine  appellations  which 
never  occur  in  the  names  of  the  other  Western 
Semitic  races.  An  explanation  of  this,  as  also  of  the 
parallel  fact,  viz.  the  persistent  use  of  the  Babylonian 
script  and  language  in  Palestine  until  shortly  before 
the  time  of  Joshua,  has  already  been  supplied  on  p. 
45  (and,  indeed,  in  the  whole  of  the  second  chapter), 

1 In  Sitriyara  and  Yishiara,  written  Zi-it-ri-ya-ra  and  Yi-ish-ia-ri. 

2 Cf.  'Ammu- nira;  Animi- Ba'al  Abi- milki,  Abi- Ba'al,  etc. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  223 

where  the  fact  that  the  land  of  Martu  was  for  cen- 
turies politically  dependent  on  Babylon  is  duly 
emphasized. 

If,  however,  we  compare  the  Hebrew  personal 
names  with  the  Canaanite,  the  result  is  exceedingly 
interesting.  Down  to  the  time  of  Joshua,  these 
appellations  present  the  same  features  as  the  Ara- 
bian nomenclature  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty  and 
of  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions.  Then  from 
Moses  and  Joshua  onwards  (i.e.  down  to  the  time  of 
the  Judges),  names  compounded  with  Yah  came 
into  vogue,  though  others  containing  elements,  such 
as  Ba'al  and  Adoni,  made  their  way  in  along  with 
them.  Lastly,  from  the  beginning  of  the  monarch- 
ical period  onwards,  names  formed  with  Yah  and 
Yeho  (the  latter  a direct  abbreviation  from  Yahveh), 
began  to  displace  almost  all  other  forms,  and  the 
elements  Yeho  or  Yahu  took  the  place  of  Ba'al, 
even  in  cases  where  the  predicate  still  remained 
Canaanitish,  eg.  Adoni-jah,  in  place  of  Adoni-Ba'al, 
Jeho-shaphat  in  place  of  Ba'al-shaphat,  etc.  In  short, 
these  names  faithfully  reproduce  every  stage  of  that 
traditional  religious  development  of  Israel  which 
has  received  such  severe  handling  from  Wellhausen 
and  his  school.  First,  in  regard  to  the  religion  of 
the  Patriarchal  Period,  the  divine  name  is  El,  em- 
ployed even  at  that  date  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
gods,  which  only  very  gradually  made  their  way  in 
from  Babylon  ; it  appears  also  in  another  name  for 
God  at  the  time,  El-shaddai,  in  South  Palestine  El- 
'Elyon : then  we  have  the  reform  introduced  by 
Moses  in  connection  with  the  ancient  divine  appeb 


224 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


lation  Ai  or  Yah1;  the  original  meaning  of  this 
name  had  long  been  lost  sight  of,  but  by  transform- 
ing it  into  Yahveh  ( = He  Who  exists,  vide  supra , 
pp.  ioo  et  seq.  and  114),  it  is  invested,  in  the  account 
given  by  Moses,  with  a new  significance;  next  came 
the  stormy  era  of  the  struggle  between  the  cult  of 
Yahveh  and  the  Canaanite  cult  of  Ba'al,  a struggle 
which  would  probably  have  terminated  with  a com- 
promise had  it  not  been  for  the  intervention  of 
Samuel  and  the  other  prophets,  who  were  not  only 
enabled  to  preserve  the  worship  of  Yahveh  from 
contamination,  but  re-instated  it  also  on  such  a per- 
manent basis,  that  it  successfully  withstood  fre- 
quently renewed  efforts  of  the  kings  of  Israel  to 
effect  a compromise. 

Before  proceeding  to  a more  detailed  examination 
of  the  time  of  Moses  and  the  personal  names  that 
occur  in  it,  I should  like  to  point  out  that  there  is 
also  another  aspect  in  which  the  fundamental  bear- 
ing of  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets  on  Old  Testa- 
ment Tradition  may  be  profitably  considered.  This 
correspondence  between  Pharaoh  and  the  governors 
of  the  cities  of  Palestine,  Phoenicia,  and  Syria,  affords 
indirect  confirmation  of  a fact  already  established 
by  other  evidence  (cf.  p.  125),  viz.,  that  at  that  epoch 
(ca.  1430 — 1400  B.c.)  the  Israelites  were  still  living 
in  Egypt,  in  the  land  of  Goshen. 

Before  going  farther,  moreover,  I wish  to  correct, 
as  briefly  as  possible,  a misconception  which  exists 


1 Probably  = Babylonian  at  — “ Heaven,”  but  used  in  the  masculine, 
as  a protest  against  the  Babylonian  feminine  form,  Ai. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  225 

not  only  in  regard  to  the  area  included  by  the  geo- 
graphical term  “ the  land  of  Goshen,”  but  also  in 
regard  to  the  kind  of  life  which  the  Israelites  led 
there,  and  the  degree  of  civilization  to  which  they 
had  attained.  In  the  first  place,  the  word  “ Gosh- 
en,” 1 in  the  Hebrew  tradition,  includes  not  merely 
— as  is  generally  supposed — the  Egyptian  Goshen 
proper,  but  also,  as  is  clearly  indicated  in  Joshua  x. 
and  xi.,  a part  of  the  contiguous  country  of  Edom 
as  far  as  Southern  Judah;  cf.  Joshua  x.  41,  “And 
Joshua  smote  them  from  Kadesh-Barne'a  even  unto 
Gaza,  all  the  country  of  Goshen  (thus  the  LXX.  the 
Hebrew  reading  is,  “ and  all  the  country  of  Gosh- 
en”), even  unto  Gibeon;”  and  xi.  16,  “so  Joshua 
took  all  that  land,  the  hill  country,  and  all  the  south, 
and  all  the  land  of  the  Goshen,2  the  lowland,  and  the 
Arabah  (desert)  and  the  hill  country  of  Israel  and 
the  lowland  of  the  same.”  In  a third  passage  (Jos. 
xv.  51),  Goshen  occurs  as  the  name  of  a city,  with 
eleven  others,  situate  in  the  extreme  south  of  the 
hill  country  of  Judea,  somewhere  to  the  west  of 
Maon  (Tel  Main),  and  therefore  probably  at  a 
point  in  the  extreme  north  of  that  part  of  Palestine 
known  as  Goshen.  In  every  one  of  the  three  pas- 
sages quoted  from  Joshua,  the  LXX.  reading  is 
Gosom  (in  place  of  “ Gesem  in  Arabia,”  the  reading 
in  Exodus).  Now,  at  the  time  of  the  sojourn  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt,  the  southernmost  part  of  Pales- 
tine was  still  in  the  undisputed  possession  of  Pha- 

1 LXX.  “ Gesem  in  Arabia,”  i.e.  the  Egyptian  province  of  Phakus,  in 
the  east  of  the  Nile  delta,  properly  Pa-kesem,  abbreviated  to  Kesem. 

2 Cf.  Egyptian  Pa- Kesem,  also  with  the  article. 

15 


226 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


raoh,  whereas  throughout  the  rest  of  Palestine, 
from  Hebron  and  Gaza  as  far  as  Syria,  the  Egyp- 
tian supremacy  had,  at  any  rate  by  the  year  1400 
B.C.,  fallen  entirely  into  abeyance.  It  is  instructive 
to  note,  therefore,  that  as  the  Israelite  population 
gradually  expanded  and  split  up  into  separate  tribes, 
the  area  allotted  to  it  was  none  other  than  the  Edom- 
ite region  conterminous  with  the  Egyptian  Goshen, 
a district  which  still  formed  part  of  the  Egyptian 
territory.  Here,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  settled 
the  tribe  of  Asser  (Heb.  Asher),  which  was  the  first 
to  separate  from  its  brethren,  viz.  in  1350  B.C.,  in  the 
time  of  Seti,  father  of  Ramses  II.,  and  migrated1  to 
its  subsequent  home  northward  of  Mt.  Carmel  in 
the  South  Phoenician  hinterland,  an  example  which 
was  probably  followed  by  some  of  the  other  tribes 
as  well.  It  is  extremely  probable,  therefore,  in  view 
of  the  intimate  relations  between  Egypt  and  Pales- 
tine, that  the  Israelites  in  the  land  of  Goshen  main- 
tained continual  intercourse  and  uninterrupted  con- 
tact with  the  latter  country,  throughout  the  whole 
430  years  of  their  stay  in  Egypt ; the  remembrance 
of  the  fact  that  their  forefathers  had  once  dwelt  in 
the  land  of  Canaan  must  have  been  carefully  treas- 
ured up  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  the  rapid- 
ity with  which,  after  the  time  of  Joshua,  they 
exchanged  their  Arabic  idiom  for  the  kindred  lan- 
guage of  Canaan,  proves  that  their  dealings  with 

1 It  was  W.  Max  Muller,  in  his  A sun  und  Europa , p.  236,  who 
established  the  interesting  fact  that  the  tribe  of  Asser  settled  in  West- 
ern Galilee  as  early  as  the  time  of  Seti  and  of  his  son  Ramses  II.,  thus 
setting  an  example  to  the  other  tribes. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  22^ 

Palestine  had  prepared  the  way  for  such  a transi- 
tion. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  quite  incorrect  to  assume 
that  the  Israelites  were  exclusively  occupied  in  pas- 
toral pursuits  during  their  stay  in  Egypt.  Nowhere 
could  they  have  enjoyed  greater  facilities  for  ac- 
quiring the  arts  of  husbandry  and  gardening  than 
in  the  land  of  Goshen.  And  that  they  actually  did 
combine  farming  with  the  keeping  of  sheep  (Gen. 
xlvi.  34),  is  perfectly  clear  from  the  testimony  of  the 
Israelite  tradition  itself,  for  in  Deut.  xi.  10,  Moses 
says  to  the  people,  “ The  land  whither  thou  goest  in 
to  possess  it,  is  not  as  the  land  of  Egypt,  from  whence 
ye  came  out,  where  thou  sowedst  thy  seed  and 
wateredst  it  with  thy  foot1  as  a garden  of  herbs” 
(sc.  but  one  which  enjoys  an  adequate  rainfall).  This 
is  corroborated  by  a passage  in  Exodus,  i.  13,  where 
we  read,  “ And  the  Egyptians  made  the  children  of 
Israel  to  serve  with  rigour : and  they  made  their 
lives  bitter  with  hard  service,  in  mortar  and  in  brick 
and  in  all  manner  of  service  in  the  field.”  One  of 
the  pet  theories  of  the  modern  critics  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch— one  of  their  accepted  dogmas,  in  fact — is 
that  the  Israelites  led  a rude,  uncivilized,  nomadic 
existence  in  the  land  of  Goshen,  shut  off  from  all  in- 
tercourse with  the  outer  world  ; some  of  these  critics 
are  willing,  it  is  true,  to  admit  that  we  have  only  the 
evidence  of  the  Jehovistic  narrative  to  prove  that 
they  lived  thus,  and  that  the  Elohistic  account  rep- 


1 By  means  of  water-wheels  worked  by  the  foot,  such  as  are  still  used 
in  modern  Egypt. 


228 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


resents  them  as  intermingling  with  the  Egyptians, 
and  not  as  a mere  pastoral  people.  The  small  resid- 
uum of  fact  underlying  this  theory  would  seem  to 
be  that  in  the  time  of  the  severest  Oppression  under 
Ramses  II.,1  a certain  amount  of  segregation  may 
have  accompanied  the  forced  labour  exacted  from 
the  people  of  Israel : it  is  scarcely  possible,  however, 
that  in  the  preceding  centuries  this  can  have  been 
even  temporarily  the  case. 

And  now  to  return  to  the  Tel  el-Amarna  texts. 
Among  all  the  numerous  references  to  places  in 
Palestine  which  occur  in  the  letters  of  Rib-Addi  of 
Gebal  (Byblos),  Ammu-nira  of  Be’erot  or  Biruna 
(Beirut),  Zimrida2of  Sidon,  Abi-milki  of  Tyre,  Pidia 
of  Ashkelon,  fAbd-khiba  of  Jerusalem,  Zimrida  of 
Lachish,  etc.  etc.,  we  naturally  expect  to  come  upon 
some  allusion  to  the  Hebrews  or  to  names  which  are 
afterwards  associated  with  their  history  in  the  time 
of  the  Judges.  The  correspondence  abounds  in 
complaints  of  rebellion  and  sedition,  and  especially 
of  the  frequently  recurring  inroads  of  the  Beduin 
tribes,  who  in  Syria  and  Northern  Palestine  were 
known  as  Suti  (p.  21 1,  note)  and  Sagas  (p.  210), 
while  in  the  letters  from  Jerusalem,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  are  described  as  Khabiri.  Nowhere  do 
we  find  a single  reference  to  the  people  of  Israel,  or 
to  any  of  the  individual  tribes  of  which  it  consisted. 

1 It  is  this  monarch  who  is  referred  to  in  Gen.  xlvii.  u,  where  Goshen 
is  called  “the  land  of  Ramses.” 

a A name  identical  with  that  of  Zimrida  of  Lachish,  and  one  denoting 
the  bearer  to  be  a native  of  South  Palestine.  The  two  persons  are,  how- 
ever, quite  distinct. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  229 


It  is  true  that  some  scholars  contend  that  one  of 
the  races  just  mentioned,  the  Khabiri,  who  had  at 
that  time  overrun  nearly  the  whole  of  Southern 
Palestine,  were  really  and  actually  identical  with 
the  Hebrews,  even  in  name.  I have  already  quoted 
a passage  from  one  of  the  letters  from  Jerusalem  (p. 
155),  in  which  reference  is  made  to  the  Khabiri: 
from  other  passages  it  would  appear  that  a certain 
Milki-el  and  the  sons  of  Labaya  had  allied  them- 
selves with  the  Khabiri,  who  were  at  that  time  the 
foes  most  dreaded  by  the  kings  of  Jerusalem.  They 
had  attacked  one  town  after  another  in  the  land  of 
Shiri,1  and  the  towns  of  Gimti-Kirmil2  and  Rub’uti,3 
had  occupied  the  country  as  far  as  Kilti,4  Gimti,5 
Ayaluna  (Ajalon)  and  Gazri,6and  had  even — -it  would 
seem  from  letter,  Berl.  199— laid  siege  to  the  city  of 
Jerusalem  itself.  Abd-Khiba  of  Jerusalem  alone  re- 
mained loyal  to  Pharaoh  to  the  last ; again  and 
again  he  makes  urgent  application  to  the  Egyptian 
government  for  reinforcements.  “ If  troops  can  be 
sent  before  the  end  of  the  year  then  the  territory 
of  my  lord  the  king  may  yet  be  retained ; but  if  no 
troops  arrive  it  will  assuredly  be  lost ; ” it  is  thus 
that  he  concludes  one  of  his  letters,  and  similar  de- 
spairing appeals  occur  elsewhere. 

According  to  Winckler,  Zimmern  and  others, 

1 i.e.  according  to  Zimmern,  Mount  Se'ir,  i.e.  Edom. 

2 Gath-Carmel,  now  Kurmul,  south  of  Hebron. 

3 i.e.  Kirjath-Arba,  or  Hebron. 

* Ke’ila,  now  Kila,  to  the  north-west  of  Hebron. 

6 The  Philistine  Gath. 

6 Gezer,  now  Tell  Jezer,  south  of  Ramleh. 


230 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


these  Khabiri  are  identical  with  the  Hebrews  ('I-bri), 
since  the  Canaanite  * Ayin , with  which  guttural  the 
word  'Ibri  commences,  is  elsewhere  in  the  texts  rep- 
resented by  the  cuneiform  kli,  and  there  are  analo- 
gous instances  of  the  abbreviation  of  an  earlier  form, 
like  'Abiri,  into  a later  form,  such  as  'Ibri  (cf.  maliku , 
milkn  — king,  namiru,  nimru  — panther,  etc.  etc.). 
Moreover,  Winckler  contends  that  the  term  Sagas 
(=  Beduin,  Babyl.  Khabbatu  = robber),  which  oc- 
curs so  frequently  in  the  letters  from  North  Pales- 
tine and  Syria,  is  merely  an  ideogram  for  Khabiri, 
and  that,  therefore,  the  inroads  in  question  must 
have  been  made  by  the  Hebrews.  In  my  opinion, 
this  is  an  entirely  gratuitous  and  untenable  assump- 
tion, even  should  Winckler’s  identification  of  the 
Kha-bi-ri  of  the  Jerusalem  letters  with  the  'Ibri  of  the 
Old  Testament  prove  to  be  correct,  an  event  which 
I regard  as  being  in  the  highest  degree  improbable. 
A much  more  likely  conjecture  is  that  the  Khabiri 
were  the  predecessors  of  the  Israelites,  but  that 
their  name,  instead  of  being  identical  with  the  He- 
braic 'Ibri  (Hebrews),  is  connected  rather  with  a 
hypothetical  Khaber  ; in  any  case,  their  inroads  into 
Palestine  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Is- 
raelitish  invasion  of  Canaan.1  Had  the  two  been 

i Even  though  Labaya,  in  a letter  to  Pharaoh  (112, 1.  34),  employs 
the  general  term  Sagas  (Sha'as  = Beduin)  in  a passage  which,  from  the 
context,  evidently  refers  to  the  Khabiri,  this  does  not  warrant  us  in  as- 
suming, as  Winckler  invariably  does,  the  general  term  Sagas,  in  the 
letters  from  North  Palestine  and  Syria,  to  be  equivalent  to  the  far  more 
specific  name  Khabiri  (cf.  letter  199.  II,  Khabiri-ki%  i.e.  the  city  of  the 
Khabiri).  As  a matter  of  fact,  the  word  Khabiri  occurs  only  in  the  let- 
ters from  South  Palestine,  written  from  Jerusalem. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  23 1 

identical,  the  sensational  fact  would  lie  before  us 
that  'Abd-khiba  of  Jerusalem  had  given  us  really  the 
record  of  such  an  event  as  the  conquest  of  the  re- 
gion west  of  Jordan,  but  the  existence  of  any  such 
record  would  be  a severe  blow  to  the  credibility  of 
the  Old  Testament  tradition.  For  in  this  latter  it 
is  not  Milki-el  who  plays  the  leading  part,  but  Joshua ; 
the  first  incursion  took  place,  not  from  Hebron,  but 
from  a point  to  the  north  of  Jerusalem,  near  Jericho ; 
the  name  of  the  king  of  Jerusalem  attacked  by  the 
Israelites  was  not  'Abd-khiba,  but  Adoni-zedek  ; of 
the  king  of  Gezer,  not  Yapakhi  (Governor  of  Gezer, 
Lond.  49—51),  but  Horam  (p.  220);  of  the  king  of 
Hasor,  not  'Abd-tirshi  (—  'Abd-kheres  ?),  but  Yabin  ; 
of  the  king  of  Lachish,  not  Zimrida,  but  Yaphi'a. 
And  then,  again,  there  would  be  an  amazing  dis- 
crepancy between  1400  B.c.,  the  approximate  date 
of  the  Tel  el-Amarna  inscriptions,  and  ca.  1230,  the 
time  of  Ramses,  whom  we  have  good  reason  for  re- 
garding (cf.  p.  125)  as  identical  with  the  Pharaoh  of 
the  Oppression.  The  theory  that  a section  of  the 
Israelites  may  have  made  an  attempt  to  conquer 
Southern  Palestine,  direct  from  the  land  of  Goshen, 
somewhere  about  the  year  1400  B.c.,  which  was  sub- 
sequently followed  by  the  actual  effective  conquest 
of  the  region  west  of  Jordan,  under  Ramses  III.,  is 
a somewhat,  different  matter. 

Indeed,  this  latter  possibility  is,  as  we  shall  see, 
the  only  one  that  will  even  bear  examination.  But, 
for  various  reasons,  we  may  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  name  Khabiri,  which  has  attained  such  promi- 
nence of  late  years,  is  not  identical  with  that  of  the 


232  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Hebrews,  and  that  the  resemblance  between  the  two 
names  is  purely  accidental.  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
from  the  Khabiri  that  Hebron  (formerly  known  as 
the  Four-town,  or  Kirjath  Arba,  Judges  i.  io)  re- 
ceived its  later  name  of  Khebron  (originally  Kha- 
biran,  i.e.  the  city  of  the  Khabiri).  In  the  Tel  el- 
Amarna  tablets,  we  find  it  mentioned  by  its  old 
name,  i.e.  Rubuti  (=  Roba'ot),  meaning  “ the  four 
quarters  [of  the  city].”  It  is  expressly  stated  in  one 
of  the  letters  from  Jerusalem,  that  Milki-el  and  a 
certain  Shuardat1  had  hired  the  people  of  Gezer, 
Gath,  and  Ke'ila  as  mercenaries,  and  with  their  help 
had  captured  Rubuti,  and  that,  as  a consequence,  the 
territory  of  Pharaoh  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
Khabiri,  Milki-el  being  elsewhere  described  as  one 
of  their  partisans ; 'Abd-khiba  declares  in  one  pas- 
sage that  Milki-el  and  the  sons  of  Labaya  had  de- 
livered the  land  of  Pharaoh  into  the  hands  of  the 
Khabiri  (L.  103.  29)  and  in  another  letter  (L.  105.  5) 
that  Milki-el,  who  had  originally  been  an  Egyptian 
official,  had  gone  over  to  the  sons  of  Labaya,  the 
ringleader  of  the  rebels.  Milki-el  and  Labaya,2 
therefore,  are  the  personages  most  prominently 
connected  with  the  Khabiri,  and  it  was  these  latter 
who  captured  Rubuti  (Roba  'ot  = Kirjath- Arba).  Is 


1 In  another  letter,  the  names  given  are  those  of  Milki-el  and  his 
father-in-law  Tagi.  Shuardat,  from  its  formation,  seems  to  be  a name 
similar  to  the  Hebrew  Shu-thelah  (Num.  xxvi.  36),  or  to  the  name  Shu- 
tatna  (elsewhere  Za-tatna  and  Zi-tatna  ; cf.  Dothan?)  which  occurs  in 
the  Tel  el  Amarna  tablets  ; cf.  also  the  name  Zi-shamimi  (literally  = He 
of  Heaven).  The  name  Tagi  reminds  us  of  To'i  in  2 Sam.  viii.  9. 

2 Variant,  Lab’a,  cf.  the  place-name,  Leba'ot  in  S.  Palestine. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  233 

it  a mere  accident  that,  from  the  time  of  the  Judges 
onwards,  Kirjath-Arba  bears  the  name  of  Khebron, 
and  that  in  the  Israelitish  pedigrees  1 (which  so 
frequently  preserve  the  memory  of  past  events  under 
a genealogical  garb),  the  names  of  Heber  and  Mal- 
kiel  are  coupled  together  as  grandsons  of  Asher  ? 
In  another  pedigree  (Exodus  vi.  18),  Hebron  is  men- 
tioned as  a grandson  of  Levi,  whose  name  bears  a 
remarkable  resemblance  to  that  of  Labaya  (pro- 
nounced Lavayci).  In  my  opinion,  these  facts  tend 
to  prove  beyond  a doubt  that  the  Israelites  possessed 
some  inkling  of  the  events  in  question — and  that  we 
have  here  another  instance  of  the  great  historical 
importance  of  personal  names  occurring  in  those 
seemingly  arid  wastes,  the  Old  Testament  pedi- 
grees. But  if,  as  is  clear  from  the  evidence  just 
adduced,  the  Khabiri  were  thus  intimately  connected 
with  Hebron,  and  have  actual^  survived  in  the  Old 
Testament  lists  under  the  name  of  Heber  [Kheber], 
it  follows,  as  a matter  of  course,  that  there  can  have 
been  no  identity  between  their  name  and  that  of  the 
Tbri  (Hebrews). 

For  our  present  purpose,  it  matters  little  what  the 
original  meaning  of  the  word  Khabiri  may  have  been. 
Some  scholars  regard  it  as  a generic  term  for  an  ally, 
or  confederate  (cf.  Hebrew  khaber  — companion), 
and  possibly  they  are  right.  If  so,  this  merely  fur- 
nishes us  with  a fresh  argument  against  identifying  it 
with  Tbri.  Others  suggest  that  it  may  be  another 
form  of  Khabirai  (written  Kha-bir-ai),  i.e.  the  Kha- 
biraeans,  a term  used  to  indicate  the  inhabitants  of 

1 Num.  xxvi.  45  and  Gen.  xlvi.  17,  and  cf.  I Chron.  vii.  31. 


234 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Elam,  i.e.  the  Kassites  ; thus  we  find  reference  to  a 
Kassite  named  Kudurra,  son  of  Tushur,1  in  a sale- 
contract  of  the  time  of  King  Marduk-akhi-irba  (ca. 
1065  B.C.),  and  also  to  a certain  Kharbi-Shipak  in 
another  document  of  about  the  same  date.  In  view 
of  the  fact  that  in  this  latter  inscription  the  town  of 
Zakkalu  (i.e.  the  Philistine  Dor,  the  city  of  Zakkal 
mentioned  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions),  and  the 
Phoenician  town  of  Irikatta  (Arka)  are  mentioned,2 
I was  at  one  time  prepared  to  accept  the  identifica- 
tion of  Khabiri  with  Khabirai,  but  I have  since  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  similarity  between  the  two 
names  is  purely  fortuitous.  Khabirai  really  means 
an  inhabitant  of  the  land  of  Khapir,3  or  Apir,4  and 
Khapirai  would,  therefore,  be  a more  correct  tran- 
scription of  it ; Khabiri,  however,  is  identical  with 
Kheber,  in  Gen.  xlvi.  17. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  latter  passage,  in  which 
Kheber  and  Milki-el  are  made  out  to  be  descendants 
of  the  Israelite  tribe  of  Asher  (Asser),  affords  us  a 
clue  to  the  real  origin  of  the  Khabiri  of  the  Tel  el- 
Amarna  tablets.  This  clue  opens  out  such  a vista 
of  interesting  discoveries  in  other  directions,  that  it 
deserves  the  honour  of  a chapter  to  itself. 

1 Written  Ud  (?)  -ush-shu-ru,  therefore  the  reading  cannot  be  Batsish 
(Scheil) ; cf.  Hilprecht’s  Fdition,  B.  E.,  No.  149. 

8 Cf.  my  Assyriological  Notes,  § 9,  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Bibl. 
Arch.  Soc.t  May  1895. 

8 Cf.  Jensen,  Zeitschr.  der  D.  M.  Ges.,  vol.  50  (1896),  p.  246. 

4 Ophir,  i.e.  originally,  that  part  of  Elam  which  lay  over  against  East 
Arabia,  afterwards  used  of  East  Arabia  itself. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  23 5 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  LAND  OF  SHUR  AND  THE  MINAEANS 

We  have  just  seen  (p.  226)  that  the  tribe  of  Asher 
had,  after  various  migrations,  settled  down  in  West 
Galilee,  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Seti  I.  and 
Ramses  II.,  i.e.  about  1350  B.C.,  or  only  fifty  years 
later  than  the  period  to  which  the  Tel  el-Amarna 
tablets  belong.  It  has  been  shown  further,  by  the 
evidence  of  the  Biblical  tradition,  taken  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  Tel  el-Amarna  letters  from  South  Pal- 
estine, that  the  Khabiri,  who  had  forced  their  way 
in  from  the  south,  belonged  to  this  tribe  of  Asher. 
They  came  in  the  first  place  from  Edom,  and  the 
Biblical  narrative  tells  us  that  the  strip  of  country 
between  Egypt  and  Judah,  that  is,  the  western  por- 
tion of  Edom,  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  the  re- 
gion generally  assigned  to  the  Wilderness  of  Shur 
and  the  territory  of  the  Amalekites,  was  looked 
upon  as  an  integral  part  of  the  land  of  Goshen.  It 
may,  therefore,  be  assumed  that  even  before  the 
time  of  Moses  a part  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  had 
either  settled  down,  or  possessed  pasturage,  in  the 
country  between  Egypt  and  Judah.  Now,  if  we  put 
all  the  above  facts  together,  we  are  led— indeed,  I 
might  almost  say,  forced  — to  the  conclusion  that 
Asher  was  one  of  these  tribes  who  had  encamped  in 


2 36  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

the  north  of  Goshen,  and  that  the  Khabiri  invasion 
of  South  Palestine  marks  the  initial  stage  of  its  sub- 
sequent advance  northwards. 

But,  quite  apart  from  the  above  considerations, 
there  is  a good  deal  of  other  evidence  of  various 
kinds  to  prove  that,  even  prior  to  the  Tel  el-Amarna 
period,  the  extreme  southern  portion  of  Palestine 
between  el-'Arish  and  Gaza  (or  Beersheba)  had  been 
inhabited  by  the  tribe  of  Asher.  This  evidence 
comes  to  us  from  three  different  sources,  which  are 
all  the  more  worthy  of  credit  because  they  happen 
to  be  entirely  independent  of  one  another  ; these 
are  (i)  various  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  which 
have  hitherto  never  been  rightly  understood,  (2)  the 
Egyptian  monuments,  and  (3)  the  Minaean  inscrip- 
tions, which  last  have  already  been  noticed  on  pp. 
76-80,  though  only  in  general  terms. 

Let  us  first  of  all  examine  the  passages  in  the  Old 
Testament  somewhat  more  closely. 

In  Gen.  xxv.  3,  there  is  a genealogical  table  in 
which  a number  of  Arab  tribes  are  said  to  be  de- 
scended from  Abraham,  viz.  Zimran,  Jokshan,  Medan, 
Midian,  Ishbak  and  Shuah.  While  'Ephah 1 and 
Abida' 2 are  given  as  descendants  of  Midian — a race 
frequently  mentioned  in  Biblical  history — the  sons 
of  Jokshan,  on  the  other  hand,  appear  as  Dedan  and 
Sheba’  (Saba),  and  the  three  sons  of  Dedan  figure 
under  the  tribal  appellations,  Ashurim,  Letushim 

1 Properly  'Ayappa,  the  Khayappa  Arabs  of  the  time  of  Tiglathpile- 
ser  III.  and  Sargon. 

2 i.e.  the  Minaean  king,  Abi-yada',”  who  will  receive  fuller  mention 
later  on. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  237 

and  Le’ummim.  As  the  two  latter  do  not  appear 
again,  we  may  dismiss  them  from  our  minds  and 
concentrate  our  attention  on  Ashur,  the  direct  de- 
scendant of  Dedan— indeed  his  first-born  son.  The 
fact  that  he  is  affiliated  to  Dedan  is  in  itself  suffi- 
cient to  prove  that  Ashur  cannot  be  identical  with 
the  celebrated  Assur,  or  Assyria,  a name  which  is, 
moreover,  introduced  elsewhere  (in  Gen.  x.  22).  For, 
according  to  the  Old  Testament  account,  Dedan’s 
dwelling-place  was  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
Edom ; the  boundaries  of  this  latter  region  are  al- 
ways described  in  the  stereotyped  phrase  “ from 
Teman  (in  the  South)  unto  Dedan,"  indeed,  in  early 
times,  Dedan  seems  to  have  included  the  northern 
extremity  of  Edom,  and  it  was  not  until  a later 
period  that  the  caravans  of  the  Dedanite  merchants 
withdrew  farther  into  the  Arabian  interior.  Even 
in  the  time  of  Gudea,  alabaster  was  obtained  from 
the  mountains  of  Tidanu  (p.  34),  and  king  Gimil-Sin 
of  Ur  (p.  37)  built  a “ wall  of  the  countries  of  the 
West"  (or  Martu)  which  he  calls  murik-Tidnim  = 
“ the  wall  that  wards  off  the  Tidnu."1  Glaser  tells 
us  2 that  in  one  of  the  longer  Minaean  Temple  Rec- 
ords discovered  by  him,  there  is  a reference  to  the 
female  slaves  from  Egypt  ( Mitsr ),  Gaza,  Moab,  Am- 
mon, Kedar  and  Dedan,  who  were  consecrated  to 
the  service  of  the  deity ; three  of  these  Dedanite 
slaves  bear  the  remarkable  names,  Bi-mahali-'Uzza 

1 F.  Thureau  Dangin  in  Hai.evy’s  Revue  Semitique,  1897,  p.  73, 
note  3. 

2 Cf.  my  treatise  : A egypten  in  den  siidarabischen  Inschriften  in  the 
Festschrift  zu  G.  Ebers * 60  Geburtstag , Leipzig , 1897. 


238 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


by  the  patience  [or  favour]  of  the  goddess  'Uzza,1 
Kharshu-ha-na  imat  = her  sun  is  lovely,  and  'Al-khe- 
resh  = over  the  Sun(?)and  a Medanite2slave  named 
Maphlitat.3 

It  is  evident  from  this  that  the  Ashurim  (plural  of 
Ashur)  of  Gen.  xxv.  3,  must  have  lived  somewhere 
near  Dedan  — i.e.  in  Northern  Edom.  There  are, 
moreover,  other  passages  which  indicate  still  more 
definitely  the  locality  of  this  land  of  Ashur — a name, 
it  should  be  noted,  representing  a so-called  “ bro- 
ken ” or  internal  plural  form  of  the  singular  Asher 
(cf.  Arab.  A’shur,  infra). 

In  Gen.  xxv.  18,  we  are  told  of  the  Israelites  that 
“ they  dwelt  from  Havilah  (according  to  Glaser, 
Central  and  North  East  Arabia)  unto  Shur  that  is 
before  Egypt,”  to  which  an  explanatory  gloss  in  the 
margin  adds,  “(i.e.)  as  thou  goest  towards  Assyria 
[Ashur].”  A later  copyist,  who  evidently  knew 
nothing  of  an  Ashur  tying  between  Egypt  and  Pal- 
estine, endeavoured  to  explain  the  words  “ unto 
Ashur,”  which  he  evidently  took  to  mean  Assyria, 
by  the  further  gloss,  “ that  is  before  Kelakh  ; ” from 
this  arose  (owing  to  association  with  Gen.  xvi.  12, 
koll  ekhav ) the  meaningless  clause,  “ he  abode  [fell] 
in  the  presence  of  all  his  brethren  ” — a clause  which 

1 Cf.  the  man’s  name  Bi-mehal  in  i.  Chron.  vii.  33,  a grandson  of 
Kheber  [Heber],  and  consequently  a great-great-grandson  of  Asher. 

2 Unless,  indeed,  the  correct  reading  here  also  is  Dedan,  for  the  first 
symbol  is  not  very  clear. 

3 Cf.  the  equally  Asherite  name  Japhlet,  in  1.  Chron.  vii.  32,  and  the 
place-name  Japhleti,  in  Joshua  xvi.  3,  both  of  them  Arabic  in  form,  for 
in  the  Canaanite  language  the  word  would  be  Jiphlat. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  239 

has  occupied  its  present  place  in  the  text  since  the 
time  of  Ezra.  From  this,  it  is  clear  that  Shur  is 
merely  a popular  abbreviation  of  the  longer  form 
Ashur.  The  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word  shfir  in 
Hebrew  being  “ wall,”  the  name  was  explained  by 
identifying  it  with  the  “ Wall  of  Egypt  from  the 
position  of  this  “ wall  ” (originally  near  Tel  el-Kebir, 
afterwards  in  the  vicinity  of  the  modern  Isma'ilia), 
which  consisted  of  a line  of  strongholds  shutting  out 
the  Wady  Tumilat,  it  is  evident  that  this  applica- 
tion of  Shur  is  mistaken.  In  regard  to  the  other 
fortresses  situated  more  to  the  north-east  (to  which 
Zar  or  Sela  belonged),  the  Egyptians  never  applied 
to  them  the  official  title,  “ Wall  of  the  Princes.”1 

In  1 Sam.  xv.  7,  we  find  an  expression  almost 
identical  with  this  gloss  in  Gen.  xxv.  18,  applied  to 
the  territory  of  the  Amalekites,  viz.,  “ from  Havilah 
as  thou  goest  to  Shur,  that  is  before  Egypt,”  the 
only  difference  being  that  in  Genesis  the  gloss  has 
“Ashur,”  instead  of,  as  here,  “Shur.”  We  may, 
therefore,  regard  it  as  certain— especially  as  the  fact 
is  further  supported  by  other  passages  as  well — that 
the  “ land  of  Shur,”  to  which  such  frequent  refer- 
ences occur,  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
Hebrew  word  shdr  — wall,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  it  is  an  abbreviation  of  Ashur.  Whereas  in 

‘Cf.  W.  Max  Muller’s  exhaustive  dissertation  on  the  Egyptian 
“ Wall,”  in  Asien  und  Europa,  pp.  43—46.  Muller  suggests  that  Zar, 
the  name  of  the  frontier  fort,  may  be  an  Egyptian  transliteration  of 
Shvlr : from  the  way  in  which  it  is  written,  however,  it  seems  more 
likely  that  Zar  (or  Sar)  is  rather  identical  with  a Canaanite  word  sal  = 
wall  (cf.  Babyl.  sillu,  Hebr.  solalah). 


240  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

2 Sam.  ii.  9 (where  we  find  the  reading  ha-Ashuri, 
instead  of  the  more  usual  ha-Asheri),  it  is  evidently 
the  later  territories  of  the  tribe  of  Asher  which  are 
intended.  In  two  other  passages  (viz.  1 Sam.  xxvii. 
8 and  Jos.  xiii.  2),  however,  where  the  present  He- 
brew text  has  ha-Geshuri,  the  earlier  and  original 
reading  would  seem  to  have  been  ha-Ashuri  ( = the 
Asherites),  used  as  a synonym  for  the  Amalekites. 
No  one  now  disputes  that  the  Geshur  here  referred 
to  is  not  the  kingdom  of  Geshur  in  Bashan,  but 
another  place  of  the  same  name  in  South  Palestine ; 
Eduard  Glaser  was  the  first  to  divine  this  ( Skizze , 
ii.  p.  458),  when  he  proposed  to  read  ha-Ashuri  in 
place  of  ha-Geshuri,  in  both  passages.1  In  Joshua 
xiii.  2 we  read,  “ all  the  regions  ( gelilotli ) of  the  Phil- 
istines and  all  the  land  of  the  Geshurites,  from  the 
Shikhor  [Shihor]  which  is  (flows)  before  Egypt,  even 
unto  the  border  of  Ekron  northward,”  where  the 
phrase,  “from  the  [river]  Shichor 2 which  is  (flows) 
before  Egypt,”  exactly  corresponds  with  the  expres- 
sion “ Shur  which  is  before  Egypt,”  employed  else- 
where. The  translators  of  the  Septuagint  seem  to 
have  read  Shur,  or  midbar  Shdr  ( --  wilderness  of 
Shur3),  instead  of  Shichor,  since  they  render  the 
passage,  “ from  the  uninhabited  region  which  lies 
before  Egypt.”  The  name  Shichor,  which  is  here 
applied  to  the  Wady  el-'Arish  is  also  of  considerable 


1 Cf.  also  my  Aufsdtze  und  Abhandlungen , p.  9,  note  1. 

2 Viz.  “ the  brook  of  Egypt,”  or  Wady  el-'Arish,  the  actual  boundary 
between  Egypt  and  Palestine. 

3 This  is  the  name  given  in  the  Old  Testament  to  the  desert  which  lies 
between  el-'Arish  and  the  Suez  Canal. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  241 

interest,  since  the  Asherites,  after  their  arrival  in 
their  new  home  to  the  north  of  Carmel,  gave  the 
stream  which  marked  the  southern  boundary  of 
their  territory,  the  name  of  Shichor  Libnat  (Joshua 
xix.  26),  just  as  they  probably  called  Mount  Carmel 
after  the  place  designated  Gath -Carmel,  in  their 
former  home  in  South  Palestine.  The  history  of 
every  age  furnishes  similar  instances  of  emigrants 
bringing  their  old  place-names  with  them,  and 
applying  them  to  their  new  surroundings.1 

In  the  other  passage  mentioned,  1 Sam.  xxvii.  8 
(as  also  in  1 .Sam.  xv.  7,  which  has  already  been  dis- 
cussed above),  it  is  the  Amalekites  who  are  referred 
to.  We  there  read  that  “David  and  his  men  went 
up  and  made  a raid  upon  the  Geshurites  and  the 
Gizrites2  [ al . Girzites]  and  the  Amalekites:  for  those 
nations  were  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  from  Telam 
[Marg.  Reading  R.  V.,  cf.  Josh.  xv.  24]  as  thou  goest 
to  Shur,  even  unto  the  land  of  Egypt.”  The  parallel 
passage  in  the  LXX.  is  thus  to  be  restored,  the  only 
change  required  being  that  of  TeXap,  Hovp  into  TeXa/u 
Zovp , i.e.  “ Telam  (which  is)  in  Shur ; ” Trfkwp,  (Hebr. 
Gillo,  Josh.  xv.  51)  having  probably  suggested  TeXap, ; 
as  both  these  places,  i.e.  Telam  and  Gelom  (or  Gillo), 
are  situated  in  the  southernmost  extremity  of  Judah. 

In  both  passages,  therefore,  these  southern  Geshu- 
rites are  closely  associated  with  the  land  of  Shur, 
and  even  if  we  cannot  see  our  way  to  adopt  Glaser’s 
hypothesis  that  the  name  is  a clerical  error  for 

1 Cf.  Epuard  Glaser,  Abessinier , pp.  17  et  seq. 

2 This  word  ( = the  men  of  Gezer)  does  not  appear  in  the  LXX.  and 
might  very  well  be  omitted. 

16 


242 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Ashurites,  we  are  not  likely  to  be  far  wrong  in  rec- 
ognizing in  the  initial  guttural  the  word  ge  = “low- 
land ” ; in  that  case  Geshur  would  be  simply  a con- 
traction of  Ge-Ashuror  G6-Shur.  Moreover,  we 
must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  David’s  raids 
against  the  Geshurites  and  Amalekites  are  again 
referred  to,  in  i Sam.  xxvii.  io,  as  raids  against  “ the 
South  ” of  Judah,  Jerahmeel  and  Kain  (cf.  also  i 
Sam.  xxx.  29,  and  in  regard  to  Kain,  Josh.  xv.  27). 

Any  doubt  which  might  still  remain  as  to  the  fact 
that  the  land  of  Ashur  or  Shur  extended  from  the 
“ Brook  of  Egypt”  (Wady  el-'Arish)  to  the  region 
between  Beersheba  and  Hebron,  is  completely  re- 
moved by  an  examination  of  two  further  texts,  viz. 
Gen.  xvi.  7,  taken  in  conjunction  with  xvi.  14,  and 
Gen.  xx.  1,  taken  in  conjunction  with  Gen.  xxiv.  62 
and  xxv.  11.  In  the  first  of  these  passages,  we  find 
Hagar  “ in  the  wilderness  by  the  fountain  in  the 
way  to  Shur,”  and  a few  lines  later  on  we  are  told 
that  the  well  in  question,  Lahai  Roi,  was  situated 
between  Kadesh  (i.e.  Kadesh  Barne'a)  and  Bared. 
Now  though,  it  is  true,  we  do  not  know  the  exact 
position  of  Bared,1  yet  we  learn  from  the  history  of 
Abraham  (Gen.  xx.  1),  that  he  journeyed  into  the 
Negeb , or  “ land  of  the  South,”  and  “ dwelt  between 
Kadesh  and  Shur,”  in  Gerar,  three  hours’  journey 
south  of  Gaza;  here,  too,  dwelt  Isaac  (xxiv.  62),  hard 
by  this  same  well  of  Lahai  Roi  (xxiv.  62  and  xxv. 
11),  near  his  father  Abraham,  who  died  there  (xxv. 


1 It  is  probably  identical  with  Berdan  in  the  territory  of  Gerar,  Lag- 
ARDE,  Onom 145.  3. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  243 


8).  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  “ between  Kadesh 
and  Bared,”  and  “ between  Kadesh  and  Shur,”  are 
parallel  expressions,  and  that  Shur,  from  which 
Gaza  cannot  have  been  far  distant  (cf.  infra  A’shur 
and  Gaza),  must,  therefore,  have  been  situated  to 
the  north  of  Kadesh,  somewhere  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Be’er-sheba. 

Unquestionably,  the  most  noteworthy  of  all  the 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament  which  contain  a ref- 
erence— hitherto  unsuspected,  but  none  the  less  in- 
disputable— to  the  ancient  Ashur  in  South  Palestine, 
is  the  “ parable”  of  Balaam  against  the  Kenites  (i.e. 
the  people  of  Kain  mentioned  above),  and  against 
Og,  king  of  Bashan;  Num.  xxiv.  21 — 24.  It  runs  as 
follows:  “(21)  And  he  [Balaam]  looked  on  the  Ke- 
nite  and  took  up  his  parable,  and  said — 

Strong  is  thy  dwelling  place, 

And  thy  nest  is  set  in  the  rock. 

(22)  Nevertheless  Kain  shall  belong  to  the  'Eber1 

[“  be  wasted,”  R.  V.] 
And  however  long  it  may  last,  Ashur  shall 
carry  thee  away  captive  ; 
[and  when  he  saw  Og  of  Bashan  (LXX.)],  he  took 
up  his  parable,  and  said— - 

Jackals  ( iyyim ) shall  come  from  the  North 2 3 and 
wild-cats  ( tsiyyim ) from  the  coast  of  Kittim, 


1 I am  indebted  to  Klostermann  for  this  ingenious  conjecture  ( le'  Eber , 
in  place  of  leba'er ) ; it  completes  the  parallelism  with  verse  24,  in  which 

the  names  Ashur  and  'Eber  already  occur. 

3 inissem'ol,  an  ingenious  emendation  suggested  by  D.  H.  Muller,  in 
Die  Propketen,  p.  215,  though  he  adopts  the  translation  “from  Sam 
*al,”  and  evidently  has  the  Zinjerli  inscriptions  in  view. 


244 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


and  they  shall  afflict  (the  land  of)  Ashur  and 

(the  land  of)  'Eber, 
and  he  also  (viz.  Og)  shall  come  to  destruction. 

It  is  clear  that  Assur,  as  an  equivalent  of  Assyria,1 
cannot  be  here  intended,  and  the  context  makes  it 
equally  evident  that  the  relation  between  the  terms 
Ashur  and  'Eber  was  of  the  very  closest  nature,  and 
that  Ashur  here  represents  that  earlier  form  of  the 
name  of  the  land  of  Shur  in  South  Palestine  already 
indicated  in  other  passages — a fact  which  has  been 
made  sufficiently  obvious  in  the  course  of  the  last 
few  pages.  Under  the  term  Kenites  we  must  include 
a part  of  the  Amalekites,  who  are  mentioned  a few 
lines  earlier.  The  threatened  invasion  of  the  tribes 
of  the  North — to  which,  by  the  way,  allusion  is  also 
made  in  Deut.  xxviii.  49  and  50 — refers  to  the  so- 
called  “ Peoples  of  the  Sea,”  who,  at  the  very  mo- 
ment of  Balaam’s  prophecy,  were  setting  out  from 
Asia  Minor,  to  invade  Syria  and  Palestine,  in  the 
eighth  year  of  the  reign  of  Ramses  III.  (about  1232 
B.C.),  a proceeding  which  threatened  dangerous  con- 
sequences to  Egypt.  They  had  made  a previous  in- 
road in  the  time  of  Minephtah,  but  now  they  came 
accompanied  by  a number  of  new  tribes,  among 
others  by  the  Pulasati  (Philistines)  and  the  Zakkal 


1 In  the  clause  “ Ashur  shall  carry  ihee  away  captive,”  Ashur  evidently 
refers  to  the  next-door  neighbours  of  the  Kenites,  and  probably  also  to 
the  subsequent  masters  of  Ashur,  or  Southern  Judah,  the  Israelites  of 
the  time  of  the  Judges  and  of  David,  (cf.  supra , the  passage  in  I Sam. 
xxvii.  10).  By  the  time  of  the  Kings,  the  obsolete  term  Ashur,  as  a 
name  for  Shur,  was  no  longer  intelligible,  and  it  was  naturally  taken  as 
appl)ing  to  Assyria. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  245 

(see  p.  234),  and  not  merely  in  ships,1  but  in  caravans 
as  well,  bringing  their  wives  and  children  with  them 
on  ox-waggons — in  short,  constituting  the  migration 
of  an  entire  people.  “ No  country  was  able  to  resist 
their  arms,  from  Kheta-land,  Kode2  and  Carchemish, 
unto  Arvad  and  Alasia  (Cyprus) ; they  annihilated 
them,  and  pitched  their  tents  in  the  heart  of  the 
country  of  the  Amorites,  whose  inhabitants  were 
plundered  and  whose  land  was  as  though  it  had 
never  been ; they  came  armed  and  threatened 
Egypt”  — (they  must,  therefore,  have  made  their 
way  through  Palestine  as  far  as  the  frontier  prov- 
ince of  Shur) — so  runs  the  Egyptian  account  of  the 
affair.  Egypt  itself  was  in  imminent  danger  of  in- 
vasion, and  Pharaoh  promptly  made  up  his  mind  to 
join  battle  with  the  invaders  on  the  frontier.  With 
the  help  of  his  Sardinian  mercenaries,  he  succeeded 
in  repelling  the  enemy  both  by  sea  and  land,  and 
seizing  the  opportunity,  he  made  a predatory  incur- 
sion into  the  country  of  the  Amorites,  which  had  al- 
ready been  harried  by  the  “ Peoples  of  the  Sea,”  and 
was  therefore  unable  to  offer  any  serious  resistance. 
This  was  the  last  time  for  many  a long  day  that  a 
Pharaoh  set  foot  in  Syria. 

These,  then,  were  the  foes  whose  coming  was  fore- 
seen by  the  inspired  Balaam,  and  who  were  eventu- 


1 In  Balaam’s  prophecy  there  is  a play  upon  this  ambiguous  word  tsiy- 
yt/ti,  which  is  used  for  “beasts  of  the  desert,”  or  “wild  cats,”  as  well  as 
for  a kind  of  ship.  Kittirn  is  the  familiar  term  for  the  Hittiles  (var.  Chit- 
tim),  and  was  afterwards  specially  applied  to  Cilicia  and  Cyprus. 

2 District,  i.e.  the  teriitory  round  the  gulf  of  Issos,  cf.  Letter  Berlin  79 
rev.  13  ; Kuti  in  a letter  of  Rib-Addi  of  Gebal. 


246  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

ally  to  penetrate  as  far  as  the  territories  of  Ashtir 
and  fEber,  bringing  ruin  and  devastation  in  their 
train.  Indeed,  this  whole  prophecy  owes  all  its  sig- 
nificance to  the  fact  that  it  was  delivered  in  the  Mo- 
saic period.  If  we  try  to  apply  its  predictions  even 
to  the  time  of  the  kings  of  Israel,  and  their  political 
surroundings,  they  at  once  lose  all  meaning;  the 
“parables”  of  Balaam  in  general,  and  this  prophecy 
in  particular,  are  no  less  deeply  impressed  with  the 
stamp  of  authenticity  than  is  the  Song  of  Deborah 
in  Judges  v.,  and  they  are  fully  entitled  to  rank  as 
contemporary  records,  which — apart  from  certain 
obscurities  on  minor  points,  due  mainly  to  copyists’ 
errors — have  been  proved  by  external  evidence  to  be 
unquestionably  both  ancient  and  trustworthy,  thus 
fulfilling  the  conditions  laid  down  on  p.  25.  As  a 
further  piece  of  external  evidence,  the  following 
may  be  adduced. 

In  one  of  the  inscriptions  of  the  Minaean  kings, 
the  same  indeed  which  has  already  been  briefly  dealt 
with  on  pp.  76  et  seq.  and  p.  89,  viz.  Hal.  535  and  578 
—or  rather  Gl.  1155,  since  the  text  now  accepted  is 
based  on  a cast  brought  home  by  Glaser — we  find  a 
similar  parallel  drawn  between  Ashur  and  fEber. 

The  beginning  of  this  very  interesting  monument 
reads  as  follows  : 1 

“ f Ammi-tsaduka,  son  of  Hama- (or  Himi-)  'Atht 
of  Yapfan  and  Sa 'd,  son  of  the  Walig  of  Dzapgan, 
the  two  great  ones  (kabris  or  governors)  of  Mutsran 

1 Cf.  Glaser,  Abessinier , p.  74,  and  my  notes  in  the  Proceedings  of 
the  loth  Congress  of  Orientalists,  Section  II.  p.  no;  also  in  the  Zeit- 
schrift  der  Detitschen  Morgenl.  GeselLch.  49,  p.  527,  note  2. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  247 


and  (of  ?)  Ma  'an  of  Mutsran 1 under  the  protection 
(?)  of  Egypt — and  there  were  engaged  with  them 
both  in  trading  operations  Egypt,  and  A'shiir  (so- 
called  internal  plural  of  Asher)  and  ' Ibr-naharany 

while  of  the  Kabirate  (governorship)  of of 

Rida  whose  Kabirate  precedes  (i.e.  precedes  that  of 
the  two  authors  of  the  inscription  in  rank) — conse- 
crated and  built  to  the  god  'Athtar  the  platform  of 
Tan  'am,  etc.” 

The  raison  d’etre  of  the  inscription  is  given  in  the 
following  sentences : 

“ on  the  day  in  which  ’Athtar,  etc.,  delivered  them 
and  their  goods  and  their  emir  (leader)  from  the 
hosts  of  [the  tribes  of]  Saba’  and  Khavilan,2  by  whom 
they  and  their  goods  and  their  camels  were  attacked, 
on  the  Caravan  route  between  Ma'an  and  Ragmat, 
and  during  the  war  which  took  place  between  the 
Lord  of  Yamnat  and  of  Sha’mat.3 

“ and  on  the  day  in  which  'Athtar,  etc.,  delivered 
them  and  their  goods,  as  they  were  half-way  on  their 
road  home  from  Egypt  during  the  hostilities  which 
took  place  between  Madhai4  and  Egypt,  while 
'Athtar  delivered  them  and  their  goods  safe  and 
sound  as  far  as  the  boundary  of  their  city  Karnavu 

1 Or,  “and  the  Minaeans  of  Mutsran  (i.e.  probably  of  Midian). 

2 Cf.  Job  i.  15  and  17  ; in  the  LXX.  the  reading  is,  Sabaeans  and 
Khavilah  ; in  the  Hebrew,  Sabaeans  and  Kashdim  ; the  latter  are  the 
Arabs  of  Bahrein,  (cf.  p.  21 1). 

3 i.e.  of  the  South  and  North  countries,  which  Glaser  takes  to  mean 
the  kings  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt,  who  were  then  at  war  with  one 
another. 

4 According  to  Glaser,  these  must  be  the  Mazoy  or  Egyptian  patrols 
on  whom  the  king  of  Upper  Egypt  mainly  relied. 


248 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


(which  must  have  been  in  their  native  South  Arabia, 
unless  some  North-west  Arabian  town  of  the  same 
name  is  meant). 

The  inscription  terminates  thus  (cf.  Glaser,  Abes- 
sinier , pp.  74  et  seq.)  : 

“ By  'Athtar,  etc.,  and  by  Abi-yada'a  Yathi'u  (cf. 
supra , p.  236),  the  (reigning)  king  of  Ma'an,  and  by 
the  two  sons  of  the  Ma'dii-kariba,  son  of  Ili-yapi'a, 
and  Ma'an  their  tribe  and  the  Lord  of  Yathil,1  and 
the  two  great  ones  of  Mutsran,  Ammi-tsaduka  and 
S'ad  (the  aforesaid  authors  of  the  inscriptions) ; and 
Ma'an  of  Mutsran  (the  Minaeans  of  Mutsran)  have 
placed  their  possessions  and  their  inscriptions  under 
the  protection  of  the  (above-mentioned)  deities  of 
Ma'an  and  Yathil  (viz.  of  'Athtar,  etc.),  and  of  the 
king  of  Ma'an  before  (or  against)  every  one  who 
shall  cause  their  inscriptions  to  be  taken  away,  re- 
moved and  carried  off  from  their  place.  By  the 
(Lord)  of  Rida  2 and  by  'Ammi-sami’a  of  Balah,  the 
great  one  (or  viceroy)  of  Yathil.” 

If  Glaser  is  right  in  his  very  plausible  explanation 
of  the  term  “king  of  Yamnat  and  Sha’mat,”  and  of 
the  race-name  Madhai,3  then  this  inscription,  which 
by  its  association  of  AshAr  and  ' Ibr-naharan  throws 

1 The  second  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Ma'an,  now  Barakish. 

2 Bi-dhi-Kidd  ; this  word  seems  to  have  been  accidentally  omitted  by 
the  inscribes 

3 That  Madhai  cannot  possibly  be  intended  for  Media  is  evident  from 
the  fact  that  the  country  of  Cambyses — who  must,  in  that  case,  have  been 
the  monarch  referred  to — would  necessarily  have  been  described  as  Parsu 
(Persia) ; just  as  the  Bible  calls  his  father  Cyrus  “king  of  Persia,”  so 
too,  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  always  refer  to  Cambyses  as  ‘ ‘ the  Per- 
sian.” 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  249 


a remarkable  light  on  the  words  Ashur  and  'Eber 
in  Balaam’s  “parable,”  most  probably  dates  from 
about  1250  B.C.,  at  which  time  the  sway  of  the  right- 
ful Pharaoh  Set-nekht,  the  predecessor  of  Ramses 
III.,  was  confined  to  Upper  Egypt  — a Semitic 
usurper,  named  Irsu,  or  Ilsu  (i.e.  probably  Ili-yasu'a  % 
or  Ilishu'a),  having  made  himself  master  of  Lower 
Egypt.  At  any  rate,  it  cannot  be  much  later  than 
the  twelfth  or  eleventh  century  B.c.  — a remark 
which  applies  to  a considerable  number  of  the 
Minaean  inscriptions.  This  is  sufficiently  proved 
by  the  history  of  the  word  Ashur,  a term  which  was 
certainly  not  used  later  than  the  Israelite  monarchy, 
except  in  the  abbreviated  form  Shur.1  Further 
proofs  are  supplied  by  the  arguments  advanced  some 
years  ago  by  Glaser,  in  support  of  his  theory,  as  to 
the  high  antiquity  of  the  Minaean  kingdom,  by  the 
evidence  of  such  passages 2 as  Judges  x.  12,  where 
reference  is  made  to  the  people  of  Ma'an,3  by  Job 
ii.  1 1,4  and  finally — last  but  not  least— by  the  testi- 
mony of  the  personal  names  of  the  Khammurabi 
dynasty,  which  has  been  fully  dealt  with  in  Chap- 
ter III.  Taking  all  these  things  together,  we  have, 
in  my  opinion,  an  overwhelming  body  of  evidence 


1 It  is  assuredly  something  more  than  mere  accident,  that  the  word 
never  occurs  again  either  in  the  Books  of  the  Kings  or  in  any  of  the 
prophetic  writings. 

2 Cf.  my  Aufsatze  und  Akhand/ungen,  p.  3 and  note. 

3 LXX.  “ Midian,”  evidently  an  explanatory  gloss  on  Ma'an. 

4 Tsophar  [Zophar],  ‘‘king  of  the  Minaeans,”  according  to  the  orig- 
inal and  sole  possible  reading;  cf.  as  Mordtmann  suggests,  Gen.  xxxvi. 
II  and  1 Chron.  i.  36,  Seo&ap. 


250 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


in  favour  of  Glaser’s  theory  in  regard  to  the 
Minaeans. 

In  another  Minaean  inscription,  Gl.  1083  ( = Hal. 
187  -f  188+  191),  of  the  time  of  king  Ili-yapi'a  Ri- 
yam  (probably  the  father  of  Abi-yada'a),  we  read 
that  “ on  the  day  in  which  he  (the  author  of  the  in- 
scription) had  business  dealings  (i.e.  in  incense  ; ir- 
iakala , cf.  Hebr.  rokel  = trader)  with  Egypt  and 
Ghazzat  [Gaza]  and  A’shur,”1  an  association  of 
names  which  at  once  reminds  us  of  the  phrase, 
“ Egypt  and  A’shur  and  'Ibr  naharan,”  quoted 
above. 

The  question  now  arises  as  to  what  was  the  geo- 
graphical or  political  significance  attached,  in  the 
thirteenth  century  B.C.,  to  this  term  ' Ibr  nahardn , 
which  is  so  closely  connected  with  A’shur,  both  in 
Balaam’s  prophecy  (in  the  abbreviated  form  'Eber), 
and  also  in  the  inscription  of  the  reign  of  Abi-ya- 
da'a, just  translated,  an  enquiry  which  naturally 
leads  to  the  further  question,  as  to  what  was  its 
original  meaning.  In  endeavouring  to  answer  this 
latter  question,  our  first  concern  will  be  to  ascertain 
the  sense  which  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  usage  at- 
tributes to  such  a word  as  naru,  or  nahar  (or  with 
the  article,  ha-nahar , South  Arabian  ha-naharan  — 
stream). 

Leaving  parallel  expressions  in  Hebrew  and  Baby- 
lonian on  one  side,  for  the  moment,  and  work- 
ing on  purely  mechanical  lines,  we  will,  first  of  all, 
simply  place  the  two  assertions  in  the  South  Ara- 


1 Ed.  Glaser,  Abessinier,  p.  75. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  2$  I 

bian  inscriptions  in  parallel  lines,  side  bj  side, 
thus : 

They  carried  on  a trade  in  incense  with 
Egypt,  Gaza  and  A'shur 

“ A’shur  and  'Ibr  naharan 

From  this  we  may  conclude  that  to  the  Minaeans 
Gaza  and  'Ibr  naharan  were  interchangeable  terms, 
or,  at  any  rate — assuming  that  'Ibr  naharan  included 
a much  larger  territory  than  that  of  Gaza — that  they 
undoubtedly  regarded  Gaza  as  forming  part  of  it. 
A certain  amount  of  light  is  thrown  on  the  question 
by  a passage  in  i Kings  iv.  24  (LXX.  3 Kings,  iv.  24,) 
where  we  are  told,  “ For  Solomon  had  dominion 
over  the  whole  of  'Eber  ha-nahar  [gloss : 'from  Raphi,1 
unto  Gaza’],  and  he  had  peace  on  all  sides  round 
about  him.”  The  gloss  “ from  Tiphsah  (Thapsa- 
cus)  even  to  Gaza,”  in  the  present  Hebrew  text, 
is  probably  post-exilic ; 2 in  most  MSS.  of  the  Sep- 
tuagint,  no  explanatory  gloss  appears  here,  and 
there  is  only  one  variant  on  the  Septuagint,  cited 
by  Klostermann,  which  gives  the  interpolation, 
“ from  Raphi  unto  Gaza,”  already  mentioned.  A 
few  lines  earlier  we  read  (1  Kings  iv.  21),  that 
“ Solomon  ruled  over  all  the  kingdoms  from  the 
River  (i.e.  as  usual,  the  Euphrates)  unto  the  land  of 
the  Philistines,  and  unto  the  border  of  Egypt,” 

1 i.e.  Raphia  between  *el~'Arlsh  and  Gaza. 

3 The  Syrian  version  has  “ Takhpis  (a  transliteration  elsewhere  em- 
ployed for  the  Egyptian  frontier  for  Tahpankes,  Jer.  xliii.  7,  etc.)  unto 
Gaza,  which,  if  it  be  the  original  reading  of  the  gloss  of  which  Tiphsah  is 
a later  corruption,  furnishes  a most  striking  parallel  to  “ from  Raphia  unto 
Gaza.”  In  that  case  both  glosses  would  mean  “ from  Egypt  unto  Gaza.” 


252 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


which  shows  that  'Eber  ha-nahar  (literally  = 
“ Beyond  the  River  ”)  in  iv.  24  cannot  refer  to  Meso- 
potamia, a country  which  lay  outside  Solomon’s 
dominions.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten,  that  iv.  24  is 
introduced  as  an  explanation  of  the  statements  in 
iv.  23,  in  reference  to  the  daily  supply  of  game  for 
Solomon’s  table,  viz.  wild  goats,  or  harts,  gazelles, 
yachmur — antelopes,  and  fatted  fowl ; Mesopotamia 
was  too  far  off  to  be  able  to  provide  such  things ; 
they  were  probably  brought  from  Negeb  (the  coun- 
try of  the  South),  which  lay  close  at  hand,  and  per- 
haps, too,  from  Tahpanhes  (Daphne),  near  Pelusium, 
where  birds  were  plentiful.  A correct  interpreta- 
tion of  1 Kings  iv.  24  would  seem  to  indicate,  that 
in  Solomon’s  time  the  term  'Eber  ha-nahar  was  ap- 
plied to  the  littoral  from  Pelusium,  or  the  “ Brook 
of  Egypt,”  or  even  from  Raphia,  as  far  as  Gaza,  i.e. 
the  westernmost  portion  of  the  land  of  Ashur,  or 
Shur,  on  the  sea  - board.  Whereas  the  Minaeans 
draw  a clear  distinction  between  Ashur  and  Gaza, 
and  also  between  A’shur  and  'Ibr  naharan,1  in 
1 Kings  iv.  24 — if  we  are  to  place  any  reliance  on 
the  glosses  dealt  with  above — Gaza  is  mentioned  as 
one  of  the  boundaries  of  'Eber  ha-nahar.  It  would 
seem,  therefore,  that  in  the  Minaean  inscriptions,  'Ibr 
naharan  is  the  littoral,  and  A’shur  the  hinterland, 
while,  under  Solomon,  'Eber  ha-nahar  includes  the 
same  area  as  the  Minaean  'Ibr  naharan,  and  probably 
the  territory  of  Ashur,  which  lay  beyond  it,  as  well. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  an  examination  of  the  inscrip- 


So  too,  in  Balaam’s  prophecy,  we  have  “Ashur  and  'Eber.” 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  253 


tion  translated  on  pp.  194  et  seq.,  which  belongs  to 
the  time  of  Assur-bel-kala,  king  of  Assyria  (ca.  1100 
B.C.),  will  help  us  to  arrive  at  a better  understanding 
of  the  geographical  term  in  question.  For  there 
the  word  Ebir-nari  (=  Hebr.  'Eber  ha-nahar,  and 
Minaean  'Ibr  naharan)  includes  Malgi  and  Yeshi- 
mon, i.e.  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan  as  well,  and 
either  Ekron  (south  of  the  modern  Ramleh)  or  else 
the  country  east  of  Pelusium,  accordingly  as  we 
adopt  the  reading,  Ba'al-zabubi,  or  Ba'al-Tsapuna, 
at  the  end  of  line  10.  Seeing  that  Ba'al-zephon  means 
literally,  “ Baal  of  the  north  wind,”  and  that  in  line 


11,  immediately  after  Ba'al-Zabu-  [ ],  or — 

another  possible  reading — Ba'al-Tsapu-  [ ] 


we  have  a reference  to  “ this  wind,”  and  to  ships  and 
waggons,  I consider  Ba'al-Tsa-pu  [na]  to  be  much 
the  more  probable  restoration  of  the  two.  And  as 
this  Ba'al-Tsapuna  lay  between  the  Ba'al  of  Ma- 
lagi  ( vide  p.  196)  and  the  Ba'al  of  Yeshimon,  it  can 
scarcely  be  identical  with  the  mountain  Ba'al-tsa- 
puna,  mentioned  by  Tiglathpileser  III.  as  part  of 
the  territory  of  Hamath,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
king  of  Tyre  is  named  at  the  very  end  of  the  in- 
scription. Or,  is  it  possible  that  this  Ba'al-Tsapuna 
was  the  god  of  Zaphon  in  Gad,  mentioned  in  Josh, 
xiii.  27,  which,  like  Yeshimon,  was  also  situated  in 
the  country  east  of  the  Jordan,  though,  as  is  gener- 
ally assumed,  much  farther  north?1  But  as,  in  this 
case,  we  should  naturally  expect  the  sequence  to  be 
Malagi,  Yasimun,  Tsapuna,  I prefer  to  adhere  to  my 


The  enumeration  in  Josh.  xiii.  24  is  evidently  from  South  to  North. 


254 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


original  interpretation,  given  above.  Still  taking 
this  Assyrian  inscription  as  our  guide,  it  would 
seem  that  'Eber  ha-nahar  must  have  extended  as  far 
as  the  Egyptian  frontier — not  merely  to  Raphia  or 
to  the  Brook  of  Egypt  (Wady  el-'Arish) — but  right 
up  to  the  chain  of  forts  on  the  Egyptian  frontier  in 
the  North-East  of  the  Delta ; for  even  in  the  time  of 
Moses,  it  is  there  that  we  find  the  “ Ba'al  of  the 
North  ” localised  in  the  name  Ba  al-Zephon  (near 
Migdol  and  Pi-ha-hiroth),  a place  mentioned  in  the 
history  of  the  Exodus.1 

And  now  to  enquire  further  into  the  original 
meaning  of  Ebir  nari,  or  'Eber  ha-nahar  (literally, 
“ the  far  bank  of  the  stream  or  river  ”),  we  find  in 
the  first  place — quite  apart  from  the  passage  in  i 
Kings  iv.  21 — that  in  the  Old  Testament  ha-nahar 
( = simply  the  Stream,  the  River)  is  used  to  indicate 
the  Euphrates,  and  ' Eber  ha-nahar  for  Mesopota- 
mia.2 The  Jordan  is  never  called  ha-nahar , but  al- 
ways ha-Yarden,  e.g.  'eber  ha-Yarden,  which  was 
used  by  the  Moabites  as  a name  for  Judah,  and  by 
the  Judeans  as  a name  for  Moab.  Similarly,  the 
Wady  el-'Arish  is  never  referred  to  as  a nahar  or  as 
ha-?iahar  ( = simply,  the  River) ; it  is  scarcely  pos- 
sible, therefore,  that  the  term  'ibr  naharan  (the  Bab- 
ylonian ebir  nari,  the  Eber  of  Balaam  and  ' Eber  lia- 

1 Cf.  also  a certain  Ba'ilat  Tsafuna  among  the  deities  worshipped  at 
Memphis  in  the  time  of  the  later  Empire  (W.  Max  Muller,  Asien  und 
Europa . p.  315). 

2 Cf.  Josh.  xxiv.  2 et  seq.  and  14  e t seq.,  2 Sam.  x.  16,  and  1 Kings 
xiv.  15.  In  all  thes^  cases,  down  to  the  time  of  the  Captivity,  the  point 
of  view  is  assumed  to  be  that  of  a resident  in  Palestine. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  255 

nahar  of  Solomon)  can  have  been  derived  from  this 
stream,  which  formed  the  boundary  between  Egypt 
and  Palestine,  even  apart  from  the  fact  that,  had 
this  been  so,  the  form  of  the  name  must  have  origi- 
nated in  Egypt,  for  the  territory  to  which  it  was  ap- 
plied lay  to  the  north  of  the  Wady  el-Arish.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  name  invariably  given  in  the 
Old  Testament  to  this  stream,  is  nakhal  Mitsrayim , 
“the  Brook  of  Egypt.”  The  Assyrian  monarch, 
Esarhaddon,  also  employs  this  form  (Assyr.  nakhal 
Mutsnf),  and  to  guard  against  any  possibility  of  mis- 
take, he  adds  ashar  ndrn  la  ishu , “ where  no  river  is” 
(i.e.  no  continuous  flow  of  water).  Moreover,  in 
Assy ro-Baby Ionian,  as  in  Hebrew,  nakhlu  — ravine 
or  Wady  ; and  finally,  the  Egyptians  of  the  later 
Empire  also  mention  a Nakhalu  to  the  south  of  Ra- 
phia  and  Gaza1  which,  since  it  is  accompanied  by 
the  determinative  used  to  indicate  “ water,”  obvi- 
ously refers  to  “ the  Brook  of  Egypt.”  This  Wady, 
therefore,  cannot  help  us  to  explain  the  source  of 
the  term  'Ibr  nahardn. 

The  origin  of  the  term  'Eber  ha-11  ah ar  in  the  sense 
of  Palestine,  used  more  particularly  of  South  Pales- 
tine, is  of  considerable  importance  historically,  for 
the  designation  must  have  come  into  use  in  Pales- 
tine at  a time  when  this  country  was  a province  of 
Babylon,  or,  in  other  words,  in  the  time  of  the  Kham- 
murabi  dynasty,  when  Abraham,  the  Hebrew  (ha- 
Tbri),  migrated  “ from  the  other  side  of  the  River  ” 
i^eber  ha-nahar,  ebir  nan ),  i.e.  from  Mesopotamia,  into 


W.  Max  MOli.er,  As ien  und  Europa , p.  134. 


256  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


Canaan.  This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  earliest 
mention  of  the  name  “ Hebrew,”  in  the  narrative 
portions  of  the  Old  Testament,  is  to  be  found  in  a 
chapter  based  on  a cuneiform  original,  viz.  Gen. 
xiv.,  and  is  there  applied  as  a cognomen  to  Abra- 
ham, an  emigrant  from  Mesopotamia.1  That  the 
term  Ibri  (Hebrew)  presupposes  the  existence  of 
the  name  Eber,  is  evident  from  the  genealogical 
table  (Gen.  x.  24),  where  Kainan  (LXX.),  Shelah 
and  Eber  are  named  as  descendants  of  Arphaxad 
(Ur-kasdim,  vide  supra,  p.  210),  and  from  the  state- 
ment in  Gen.  xi.,  where  Abraham  is  described  as 
a descendant  of  Arphaxad  and  Eber;  and  that  this 
name  Eber  must  be  an  abbreviated  form  of  Eber 
ha-nahar  has  already  been  made  clear,  by  the  iden- 
tification of  Balaam’s  “ Ashur  and  Eber  ” with  the 
Minaean  A'shur  and  'Ibr  naharan.  Moreover,  it  is 
a well-established  fact,  that  elsewhere  in  the  Old 
Testament  the  expression  'Ibri  is  never  used  of  the 
Israelites,  except  where  it  is  put  in  the  mouth  of 
non-Israelite,  or  where  an  Israelite  is  speaking  to 
the  Egyptians  about  his  fellow  - countrymen,  or, 
finally,  where  the  writer  wishes  to  draw  a distinction 
between  the  Israelites  and  some  other  race.  In  the 
majority  of  these  latter  cases,  it  is  by  the  Egyptians 
of  the  time  of  Joseph  or  Moses,  or  in  contrast  with 
the  Egyptians,  or  occasionally  with  the  Philistines, 
that  the  Israelites  are  called  Hebrews.  It  is,  there- 
fore, a matter  for  serious  consideration  whether, 
even  thus  late  in  the  day,  we  ought  not  to  adopt  the 


1 Cf.  supra , pp.  191  et  seq .,  for  full  details. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  2$7 

almost  exploded  theory,  according  to  which  the 
name  'Apri,  or  'Epri1 — which  occurs  so  frequently 
in  Egyptian  monuments  of  the  later  Empire  — is 
made  out  to  be  merely  an  Egyptian  transliteration 
of  'Ibri.  The  principal  objection  to  this  identifica- 
tion, first  proposed  by  F.  Chabas  and  afterwards 
supported  by  G.  Ebers,  lies  in  the  difference  be- 
tween the  labials  employed ; yet  attention  has 
already  been  drawn  (on  p.  109,  note  1)  to  an  obvious 
instance  in  which  the  Canaanite  b has  been  repre- 
sented by  the  Egyptian  p.  A further  objection  lies 
in  the  circumstances  that,  even  under  Ramses  IV., 
i.e.  some  considerable  time  after  the  Exodus,  we 
find  it  recorded  that  800  'Epriu  (Egypt,  plural  of 
'Epri),  drawn  from  the  foreign  residents  of  'An,2 
were  employed  in  compulsory  labour  at  the  quarries 
of  Wady  Hammamat.  But  just  as  the  Israelites 
were  accompanied  in  their  Exodus  by  a number  of 
aliens  (Ex.  xii.  38),  it  may  equally  well  have  hap- 
pened that  many  Israelites  remained  behind  and 
mingled  with  the  foreign  population  of  Egypt.  In 
this  case,  the  Egyptians  would  naturally  apply  to 
them  the  generic  name  of  'Epri,  which,  according  to 
the  Old  Testament  view,  rightfully  belonged  to  all 
the  descendants  of  Abraham  [e.g.  even  to  the  inhab- 
itants of  South  Arabia] ; the  inscription  recently 
discovered  by  Flinders  Petrie  ( vide  p.  264)  has  now 

1 Applied  to  a Semitic  race  who  dwelt  in  the  East  of  the  Delta,  and 
who  were  occasionally  called  upon  by  the  Egyptians  to  supply  compul- 
sory labour. 

2 The  eastern  portion  of  Goshen,  in  the  Heroopolitan  Nome  at  the 
eastern  extremity  of  the  present  Wady  Tumilat. 

17 


258  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

made  it  certain  that,  in  the  time  of  Minephtah,  the 
Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus,  the  Egyptians  knew  the 
Israelites  by  their  special  name  Isir’il  (i.e.  Israel). 

One  thing  I am  firmly  convinced  of,  and  that  is 
the  uselessness  of  trying  to  make  out  that  there  is 
no  sort  of  connection  between  ebir  ndri , the  Ancient 
Assyrian  name  for  Palestine  (which  must,  of  course, 
have  come  originally  from  Babylonia),  the  Eber  of 
Balaam,  the  Eber  ha-nahar  of  Solomon,  the  Ibr  na- 
haran  of  the  Minaean  inscriptions — for  all  these  ex- 
pressions originally  served  to  indicate  the  same  thing 
— and  the  race-name  Ibri,  which,  by  the  way,  also 
occurs  (Gen.  x.)  under  the  form  Eber.1  Moreover, 
the  retention  of  the  term  Ebir  nari — suggested  in 
the  first  instance  by  the  migration  of  Abraham — as 
an  official  name  for  Palestine,  by  the  Babylonians 
who  ruled  there  under  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty, 
was  rendered  all  the  easier  by  the  fact  that  this 
name,  once  it  had  been  introduced  and  accepted, 
could  be  construed  in  any  of  the  various  ways  which 
the  necessities  of  the  moment  might  require.  Thus, 
from  the  Babylonian  point  of  view,  the  term  “ Be- 


1 Some  years  ago,  Glaser  (A  us  land,  1891,  p.  47,  note  1)  made  a ten- 
tative suggestion  to  this  effect,  “Or  must  we,  in  the  end,  translate  'Ibr 
nahaian  as  the  Hebrews  of  the  (boundary)  river  ; ” and  later  on  Nathan- 
iel Schmidt  expressed  himself  still  more  definitely  on  the  subject,  in  a 
paper  entitled  “ The  external  evidence  of  the  Exodus,”  which  appeared 
in  Hebraica  X.  (1894),  pp.  159  et  seq.,  and  is  well  worth  reading.  In 
this  paper  I notice  that  Morris  Jastrow,  jun.,  has  anticipated  me  by 
drawing  attention  to  the  connexion  between  Gen.  xlvi.  17  (Heber  and 
Malchiel),  and  the  Khabiri  and  Malki-el  of  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets  ; 
he  failed,  however,  to  appreciate  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  they 
may  both  be  traced  to  Asher. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  259 


yond  the  River  ” must,  at  first,  have  meant  the 
whole  of  Syria  (including  Palestine) ; it  was  the  offi- 
cial name  used  for  the  province  of  Syria  under  the 
kings  of  Persia,  and  perhaps  even  in  the  time  of  the 
Neo-Babylonian  Empire  as  well,1  when  it  was  prob- 
ably unearthed  from  the  Ancient  Babylonian  rec- 
ords, and  re-introduced  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  who 
had  a mania  for  imitating  the  institutions  and  ex- 
pressions of  Khammurabi.2  The  elastic  character 
of  the  term  “ Beyond,”  naturally  led  to  its  being  as- 
signed different  meanings,  fitting  in  with  various 
political  changes.  If,  for  instance — and  the  thing 
is  quite  conceivable — the  Babylonians,  before  they 
finally  surrendered  Palestine  to  the  Egyptians,  re- 
tained for  a time  their  hold  on  the  eastern  bank 
of  the  Jordan,  while  the  Egyptian  aggression  was 
mainly  confined  to  the  western  bank,  it  is  perfectly 
possible  that  ebir  nari  may,  at  a pinch,  have  come 
to  be  equivalent  to  eber  ha-Yarden  ( — the  country 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan),  and  thus  have  been 
applied  to  the  region  either  east  or  west  of  the  Jor- 
dan according  to  circumstances,  and  finally  to  both 
together.  Nay  more,  when  Jacob  and  his  people 
crossed  “the  Brook  of  Egypt,”  on  their  way  to  settle 

1 Cf.  Keilinschr.  Bibl.  IV.  p.  269.  Ebir  nari  in  a contract  tablet 
dating  from  the  third  year  of  Cyrus,  and  p.  305  Ushtanni,  viceroy  of 
Babylon  and  Ebir  nari,  in  a tablet  dating  from  the  third  year  of  Darius. 

2 After  what  has  been  said  on  pp.  210.  et  se<j.t  in  regard  to  the  original 
nationality  of  the  Clialdaeans  (or  rather  Kasdaeans),  to  which  race  Nebu- 
chadnezzar belonged,  the  reader  will  easily  understand  that  this  was 
something  more  than  a mere  accident.  It  was  not  necessary  that  Nebu- 
chalnezzar  should  have  been  an  Arab  himself — the  fact  that  his  earliest 
ancestors  were  these  Chaldaean  Arabs,  is  sufficient  in  itself. 


260 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


in  the  land  of  Goshen,  the  term  Eber  must  have 
followed  them,  and  must  occasionally  have  been 
used  of  Goshen  in  its  wider  sense,  viz.  the  whole 
area  between  the  isthmus  of  Suez  and  Gaza. 

And  now,  after  this  exhaustive  analysis  of  the 
terms  “ Eber  of  the  River,”  and  “ Hebrew,”  I may 
perhaps  be  allowed,  before  concluding  the  present 
chapter,  to  return  for  a moment  to  the  land  of 
Ashur.  The  Egyptians  of  the  Ptolemaic  period, 
who  had  a weakness  for  introducing  into  their  in- 
scriptions archaic  and  obscure  terms  borrowed  from 
earlier  epochs,  have,  in  one  instance,  inserted  the 
gloss  Eshru  in  connection  with  the  well-known  land 
of  Menti,  the  name  applied  to  the  Sinaitic  peninsula 
from  the  time  of  the  later  Empire.  It  need  scarcely 
be  said,  that  the  term  Eshru  cannot  here  refer  to  the 
sacred  lake  of  that  name,  which  plays  a part  in 
Egyptian  mythology  and  is  localized  at  Karnak  and 
also  at  Bubastis.  On  the  contrary,  the  allusion  here 
must  be  to  the  land  of  Ashur,  or,  in  other  words,  to 
the  wilderness  of  Shur.  Moreover,  in  view  of  all 
that  we  have  learnt  in  regard  to  Ashur  and  Shur, 
the  question  arises  whether  the  land  of  Sheri  or 
Shiri,  which  we  find  mentioned  in  the  Telel-Amarna 
letters  from  Jerusalem,  and  which  must  evidently 
have  been  situated  somewhere  in  the  far  South  (vide 
p.  230),  may  be — not  Se'ir,  but  rather  a Babylonian 
transliteration  of  Shur.  It  is  true,  that  such  a trans- 
literation would  be  inaccurate,  since  we  should  ex- 
pect to  find  the  word  written  Shuri ; on  the  other 
hand,  the  identification  with  Se'ir  [Sefir]  also  lies  open 
to  objection,  even  though  the  form  Kilti  = Ke'ilah 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  26l 


(an  equation,  by  the  way,  which  is  not  absolutely 
certain)  seems  to  afford  a precedent  for  the  omis- 
sion of  the  Ayin.  The  description  in  the  text,  viz. 
“The  countries  of  Shiri  [-ki]  unto  Gimti-Kirmil” 
(el-Kurmul,  to  the  north  of  Tel-Ma'in),  is,  geograph- 
ically, much  more  applicable  to  tne  land  of  Ashur 
than  to  Mount  Se'ir,  since  this  latter  lies  too  far 
south. 

As,  in  talking  of  Mount  Se'ir,  we  have  come  as  far 
as  the  land  of  Edom,  the  former  home  of  the  Hor- 
ites,  I may  be  allowed  to  quote  in  this  connexion 
one  of  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets  (L.  64  = Winckler, 
No.  237),  which  is  of  considerable  interest  both  from 
a geographical  as  well  as  an  historical  point  of  view. 
It  should  be  noted  beforehand  that,  according  to 
Deut.  ii.  12  and  Gen.  xxxvi.,  the  Horites  had  either 
been  driven  out,  or  absorbed  by  the  sons  of  Esau, 
or,  in  other  words,  by  the  Edomites.  The  letter 
reads  as  follows— 

“To  Yan'am,  my  lord  (the  viceroy  of  Yerimot  and 
nominal  governor  of  Egyptian  Palestine),  Mut-Addi, 
thy  servant : I prostrate  myself  at  the  feet  of  my 
lord.  As  I told  thee  by  word  of  mouth,  Ayab  (cf. 
the  name  Job)  has  secretly  fled,  even  as  the  king  of 
Bikhishi  (Pe'ish  ?),  fled  before  the  officers  of  the  king, 
as  my  lord  the  king  liveth.  As  my  lord  the  king 
liveth,  if  Ayab  is  in  Bikhishi,  then  is  it  two  months 
(that  he  is  there).  Lo,  there  is  Bin-inima,1  inquire  of 
him;  lo,  there  is  Tadua  ( = Dadu’a ?),  inquire  of 

1 A name  similar  to  Benjamin,  only  in  a semi-Egyptian  form,  the 
Egyptian  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  yamin  — on  the  right  hand,  is 
wanim,  which  in  the  cuneiform  script  appears  as  inim. 


262 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


him;  lo,  there  is  Yashuya  (Washuya  or  Pishuya?), 

inquire  of  him.  While  he  from the 

city  of  Astarti  is  expelled,  at  such  time  as  all  the 
cities  of  the  land  of  Gari 1 arose  in  revolt : Udumu 
(Edom),  Aduri  (Addar,  Josh.  xv.  3?),  Aram  (Ar'ar 
or  Aroer)  Mishtu,  Magdal,  Khini-anabi  ( = En-anab, 
'The  Spring  of  Grapes’),  and  Zarki  (cf.  Zereth, 
Josh.  xiii.  19?),  then  were  the  cities  of  Khapini  (or 
Khawani,  Khayani)  and  Yabishi  (Jabesh)  taken. 
Moreover,  after  thou  hadst  written  a letter  to 
me,  did  I write  unto  him  (viz.  Ayab)  to  tell  him 
that  thou  hadst  returned  from  thy  journey.  And, 
lo,  he  has  reached  Bikhishi  and  has  received  the 
order.” 

In  view  of  the  names  of  these  Edomite  cities,  it  is 
a question  whether  we  ought  not  to  restore  Gen. 
xxxvi.  39  as  follows  : “ and  his  (Hadar’s)  cities  were 
Pa'ish  (in  the  Massoretic  text,  Pa'u,  var.  Pa'i,  LXX. 
Phogor),  Me’eshet  (cf.  supra  Mishtu),  Mehetab-el, 
Bath  Matred  2 and  Me-zahab.”  It  is  quite  possible 
that  the  land  of  Khar,  or  Gari,  included,  in  addition 
to  Edom  proper,  a part  of  the  territory  of  Ashur  as 
well;  especially  if  we  remember  the  wide  meaning 
occasionally  attached  to  the  term  “ land  of  Khar,”  in 
the  Egyptian  texts  of  the  later  Empire,  where  it  is 

1 Winckler  takes  this  to  mean  Edom.  I feel  no  hesitation  in  identi- 
fying this  name  with  the  Egyptian  Khar,  Hebr.  Khor ; Khori  = Hor- 
ites,  which  means,  of  course,  not  cave-dwellers,  but  the  people  of  the 
land  of  Khar. 

2 Probably  the  correct  reading  is  Bet-Matred.  The  next  word,  Me- 
tsahab  (cf.  Me-deba,  and  on  the  other  hand  Di-znhab),  is,  in  any  case, 
much  more  lik-  the  name  of  a place  than  of  a person. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  263 

frequently  used  to  describe  the  whole  of  Southern 
Palestine,  from  the  Egyptian  frontier  onwards. 
Both  the  letter  quoted  above, however,  and  Hebrew 
tradition  in  regard  to  the  Horites,  show  that  origi- 
nally it  was  used  of  Edom  alone. 

In  dealing  with  Deut.  xxviii.  68  (on  p.  11),  I have 
already  had  occasion  to  point  out  that  Hosea  ix.  3 is 
merely  a quotation  from  this  passage.  When,  how- 
ever, Hosea,  after  giving  the  words  of  Deuteronomy, 
viz.  “ But  Ephraim  shall  return  to  Egypt,”  adds, 
“and  they  shall  eat  unclean  food  in  Ashur  [Assyria],” 
it  seems  extremely  probable — in  view  of  the  facts 
brought  forward  in  the  present  chapter— -that  this 
supplementary  clause  formed  part  of  the  original 
text  of  Deuteronomy,  and  was  only  omitted  later 
owing  to  its  having  been  confounded  with  Assyria. 
The  principles  of  parallelism  require  that  the  Ashur 
in  question— even  though  Hosea  may  have  under- 
stood it  as  equivalent  to  Assyria — should  be  some 
region  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Egypt,  and  there 
is,  of  course,  no  other  locality  which  complies  with 
this  condition  except  the  land  of  Shur,  which  even 
the  compiler  of  the  Book  of  Joshua  regarded  as 
equivalent  to  that  part  of  Goshen  which  lay  in  South 
Palestine  ; 1 it  was  there  that  the  tribe  of  Asher,  and 
probably  certain  other  tribes  of  Israel,  had  settled 
long  before  the  exodus  of  the  remaining  tribes  from 
Egypt;  indeed,  they  had  already  set  out  on  their 


1 Another  passage  in  which  Ashur  originally  indicated  the  region  to 
the  north  of  the  “Brook  of  Egypt,”  though  later  the  reference  was  taken 
as  applying  to  Assyria,  viz.  Gen.  ii.  14,  will  be  briefly  dealt  with  at  the 
end  of  the  10th  chapter  of  the  present  volume. 


264  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

journey  further  north  before  that  time.  The  early 
stages  of  this  migration  of  the  tribe  Asher  from  the 
land  of  Ashur  were  indicated  by  the  advance  of  the 
Khabiri  (about  1400  B.c.),  while  by  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  b.c.,  in  the  time  of  Seti  I.  and 
Ramses  II.,  we  find  them  safely  installed  in  their 
subsequent  home  to  the  north  of  Carmel. 

When  we  find  Minephtah,  the  Pharaoh  of  the 
Exodus,  concluding  the  recently-discovered  inscrip- 
tion— which  forms  a pendant  to  another  inscription 
dealing  with  the  defeat  of  the  Libyans  and  Peoples 
of  the  Sea — in  the  following  boastful  strain,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  by  Israel  he  means  the  territory 
of  Asher,  of  whose  dependence  on  Israel  the  Egyp- 
tians cannot  have  been  ignorant — 

“ Libya  is  laid  waste,  Kheta  (the  Hittite  region 
from  whence  came  the  “Peoples  of  the  Sea”) 
has  been  pacified,  Canaan  with  all  its  ill-disposed 
ones  has  been  captured,  Ashkelon  has  been  led 
away  captive,  Gezer  taken,  I-no'am  (to  the  east 
of  Tyre,  and  therefore  in  the  territory  of  Ashur) 
has  been  annihilated,  Isir’il 1 has  been  laid  waste 
and  its  seed  destroyed,  Khar  has  become  even 
as  the  widows  ( khar ) of  Egypt,  all  lands  are, 
together,  at  peace.  Every  man  that  roameth 
about  hath  been  chastened  by  the  king  Mineph- 
tah.” 

This  inscription  is  dated  in  the  fifth  year  of  Mineph- 
tah (1277  B.c.) ; on  comparing  it  with  its  companion 

1 Written  with  the  determinative  “people,”  so  that  it  is  evidently  a 
nation  and  not  a place  that  is  meant.  Cf.  later  (in  the  inscriptions  of 
Salmanaser  II.)  Ahab  of  Sir'il  = Israel. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  T1IE  MONUMENTS  265 

text,  the  so-called  Karnak  Inscription,  we  find  that 
Minephtah  was  not  in  Palestine  or  Syria  at  the  time, 
but  he  must  have  considered  himself  fortunate  in 
having  been  able  to  drive  back  his  enemies  from  the 
Egyptian  frontier ; moreover,  these  enemies  prove 
to  have  been  merely  the  Libyans  and  the  Peoples  of 
the  Sea  (Lycians,  Achivi,  Tyrrhenians,  Saklus  and 
Sardinians),  who  were,  however,  supplied  with  mu- 
nitions of  war  by  the  Phoenicians.  The  Israelites 
under  Moses  could  hardly  have  chosen  a more  op- 
portune juncture  than  this  for  their  departure  out  of 
Egypt,  and,  as  their  exodus  was  indirectly  connected 
with  the  barbaric  invasion,  Minephtah  mentions 
them  by  name  in  the  highly  poetic  account  which 
he  gives  of  the  affair.1 * * * * 6  The  territory  he  assigns  to 
them,  however— inferentially  at  any  rate — is  that  of 
Asher  (to  the  east  of  Acre  and  Tyre),  since  it  occu- 
pies a place  on  the  list  between  I-no'am  and  Khar. 

As  has  already  been  pointed  out  on  a previous 
page,  it  is  probable  that  other  tribes  of  Israel  be- 
sides that  of  Asher  had  settled  in  South  Palestine 
before  the  time  of  Moses.  Prominent  among  these 
apparently  were  the  tribes  of  Simeon  and  Levi,  both 
of  whom  began  to  emigrate  at  an  early  date,  and 
seem  soon  to  have  almost  passed  out  of  memory. 
A comparison  of  the  blessing  pronounced  by  Jacob, 

1 The  statement  in  Exodus  xii.  38,  “ And  a mixed  multitude  went  up 

also  with  them,”  may  perhaps  be  taken  as  an  indication  of  a certain  co- 

operation with  the  enemies  by  whom  Egypt  was  then  assailed.  If  this 

be  so,  we  can  all  the  more  easily  understand  the  mobilization  of  the 

Egyptian  forces  who  were  sent  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives  (Exodus  xiv. 

6 et  seq.). 


266 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


in  Gen.  xlix.,  with  that  of  Moses,  in  Deut.  xxxiii., 
clearly  proves  that  besides  the  priestly  tribe  of  Levi, 
there  was  another  tribe  of  the  same  name,  which  had 
ceased  to  exist  long  before  the  time  of  Moses  ; in 
the  first  of  these  two  passages,  Levi,  and  Simeon  as 
well,  are  cursed  as  murderers  and  violent  men,  and 
are  threatened  with  division  and  scattering ; while 
in  the  second,  on  the  other  hand,  Simeon  is  not  men- 
tioned at  all,  and  the  tribe  of  Levi — evidently  a later 
and  fundamentally  different  body  from  the  first- 
named  tribe  of  that  name — are  blessed  as  the  guar- 
dians of  doctrine  and  prophecy.  It  is  evident  that 
a stirring  page  of  history  must  have  intervened  be- 
tween the  dates  of  these  two  documents,  and  the 
events  recorded  in  the  Tel  el-Amarna  Letters  seem  to 
offer  the  only  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  discrep- 
ancy observable  between  them.  It  is  by  no  means 
impossible  that  this  earlier  tribe  of  Levi,  which  had 
already  disappeared  in  the  time  of  Moses,  may  have 
been  connected  in  some  way  or  other  with  Labaya 
and  his  sons,  of  whom  we  hear  so  frequently  in  the 
letters  from  Jerusalem  {vide  supra , p.  232).  In  that 
case,  it  is  needless  to  point  out  Jacob’s  blessing  must 
have  been  composed  before  the  time  of  Moses ; in 
the  period  after  Moses,  such  an  execration  of  Levi 
would  have  been  not  only  meaningless,  but  absolutely 
inconceivable. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  consider,  for  a moment,  the 
practical  effect  of  all  the  evidence  which  we  have 
gleaned  from  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets — dating  from 
the  period  between  1430  and  1400  B.c.  — and  from 
the  Minaean  and  Egyptian  inscriptions.  Far  from 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  2 67 

obliging  us  to  modify  in  any  way  the  traditional  view 
of  Old  Testament  history,  or  from  placing  a weapon 
in  the  hands  of  its  opponents,  it  tends,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  confirm — indirectly  it  is  true— the  accuracy 
of  the  Old  Testament  narrative,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  fill  up  a gap  in  it,  by  enabling  us  to  recon- 
struct the  history  of  the  period  which  preceded  the 
conquest  of  Palestine  by  Joshua,  about  the  year 
1230  B.c.  The  ancient  Hebrew  tradition — and  more 
especially  that  part  of  it  which  deals  with  the  earli- 
est times — has,  in  many  instances,  come  down  to  us 
in  a merely  fragmentary  and  mutilated  condition. 
But  even  isolated  references  and  allusions,  such  as 
those  which  occur  in  regard  to  the  land  of  Ashur, 
Heber  and  Malki-el,  Hebron,  etc.,  etc.,  when  sup- 
plemented by  the  external  evidence  that  lies  to  our 
hand,  are  shewn  to  be  ancient  and  authentic  tradi- 
tion, and  thus  supply  further  testimony  to  the 
existence  of  pre-Mosaic  records.  In  the  next  chap- 
ter, I propose  to  bring  forward  a number  of  fresh 
arguments  in  favour  of  this  view,  which  is  so  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  the  theories  at  present  up- 
held by  Wellhausen  and  his  school.  The  most 
important  and  decisive  of  these  arguments  is  based 
on  personal  names  occurring  in  the  book  of  Exodus, 
although  the  remainder  are  scarcely  less  cogent. 


268 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TIME  OF  MOSES 

From  a very  early  date,  a regular  trade  in  incense 
together  with  other  drugs  and  spices  of  the  Hadra- 
maut,  was  carried  on  by  the  Minaeans — a nation  of 
South  Arabia  to  whom  we  have  more  than  once  had 
occasion  to  refer — with  North-west  Arabia,  South- 
ern Palestine  and  Egypt.  In  order  to  place  this 
trade  with  the  countries  which  lay  outside  their  own 
territory  upon  a stable  basis,  they  must  naturally 
have  done  their  best  to  secure  the  ancient  caravan 
route  which  led  from  South  Arabia  to  Gaza,  by  the 
establishment  of  fortified  stations  along  its  course. 
As  there  would  seem  to  have  been  a second  caravan 
route,  extending  from  the  Hadramaut  across  East 
Arabia  as  far  as  Babylon — in  addition  to  a number 
of  branch  routes  similar  to  that  which  led  through 
the  country  east  of  the  Jordan  to  Damascus — it  is 
manifest  that  for  countless  ages  there  must  have 
been  a brisk  intercourse  between  Arabia  and  the 
nations  on  its  frontiers,  such  as  is  clearly  reflected 
in  the  Egyptian  and  Babylonian  legends  regarding 
the  interior  of  Arabia  and  the  Elysian  incense-bear- 
ing shore.  The  first  authentic  historical  evidence 
of  this  intercourse  is  furnished  by  the  representa- 
tion of  an  embassy  on  a monument  of  the  twelfth 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  269 


Egyptian  Dynasty,  bearing  a gift  of  antimony 
( vide  supra , pp.  52  et  seq.)  ; and  the  next  occurs  in  the 
narrative  (Gen.  xxxvii.)  of  the  sale  of  Joseph  to  a 
band  of  Arabian  incense-merchants.  In  one  passage, 
these  traders  appear  as  Ishmaelites,  in  another,  as 
Midianites,  as  the  following  parallel  extracts  clearly 
show — - 

(25)  And  they  sat  down  to 
eat  bread : and  they  lifted  up 
their  eyes  and  looked,  and  be- 
hold, a travelling  company 
of  Ishmaelites  came  from 
Gilead  {i.e.  from  the  country 
east  of  the  Jordan)  with  their 
camels  bearing  nek’dt  (traga- 
canth  gum)  Styrax1  and  lada- 
num  (or  Myrrh)  going  to  carry 
it  down  into  Egypt. 

(28  b ) and  they  (his  brethren) 
drew  and  lifted  up  Joseph  out 
of  the  pit  and  sold  Joseph  to 
the  Ishmaelites  for  twenty 
pieces  of  silver. 

So,  too,  in  the  account  of  Gideon’s  victory  over 
the  Midianites,  we  find  the  names  Midianite  and 
Ishmaelite  used  interchangeably  (cf.  Judges  viii.  24, 
“ because  they  were  Ishmaelites,”  with  the  rest  of  the 
narrative).  Again,  in  Genesis  xxv.,  the  genealogies 
of  Keturah2  and  Hagar  run  parallel  with  one  an- 
other; by  the  former  Abraham  became  the  father  of 

xIn  regard  to  this  article,  cf.  my  Aufsatze  tind  Abhandlungen , where 
it  is  discussed  at  length. 

2 i.e.  incense,  cf.  Basmat,  Kets'iah,  and  other  feminine  names  of  simi- 
lar import. 


(28)  And  there  passed  by 
Midianites,  merchantmen 


they  brought  Joseph  into 
Egypt.  (36)  And  the  Midian- 
ites sold  him  into  Egypt  unto 
Potiphar. 


270  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Jokshan  and  Midian  {vide  supra , p.  236),  by  the  lat- 
ter of  Ishmael,  from  whom  Nebayoth,  Kedar,  etc., 
were  descended,  just  as  Dedan  was  descended  from 
Jokshan  and  Abida  from  Midian. 

The  fact  that  under  the  Minaean  king  Abiya- 
da'a1  the  Minaeans  had  a governor  stationed  in  the 
territory  of  Mutsran,  is  explained  by  their  anxiety  to 
guard  the  north-western  portion  of  the  caravan  route 
to  Gaza  and  Egypt,  which  at  that  point  skirted  the 
borders  of  South  Palestine  and  Egypt.  Glaser  tells 
me,  by  way  of  supplementing  the  information  con- 
tained in  the  inscription  Gl.  1155,  of  which  he  was 
the  first  to  publish  a correct  version,  that  in  another 
as  yet  unpublished  inscription  of  this  same  king 
Abi-yada'a  (Gl.  1302),  it  is  explicitly  stated  that  “ on 
the  day,  on  which  Sa'd  (probably  identical  with  the 
author  of  Gl.  1155)  appointed  ( kabbara ) two  men 
over  the  Minaeans  of  Mutsran  (Ma'an  Mutsran)  as 
princes  (or  governors),  and  they  remain  safe  and  un- 
injured, because  (?)  Sa 'd  and  his  tribe  wished  well 
(showed  favour)  to  these  two  men.”  Now  this  land 
of  Mutsran  is  probably  identical  with  the  region  sit- 
uate on  the  Aelanitic  Gulf  in  North-west  Arabia, 
which  is  generally  known  as  the  land  of  Midian. 
The  gloss  “ Midian,”  for  Ma  on  (i.e.  Ma  an)  which  ap- 
pears in  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Hebrew  text 
of  Judges  x.  12,  the  part  played  by  the  Midianites 
in  the  history  of  Joseph  and  the  Hebrew  Tradition, 
which  makes  out  king  Abi-yada'a  to  be  the  son  of 
Midian,  all  combine  to  prove  this.  Its  capital  was 


1 Vide  supra , pp.  246  et  seq.,  the  inscription  Gl.  1155. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  27 1 

the  Arabian  Ma'an,  which  retains  its  ancient  name 
down  to  the  present  day,  and  has  been  from  time 
immemorial  an  important  halting-place  for  caravans 
and  pilgrims.  It  was  at  the  same  time  the  northern- 
most point  of  this  region,  which,  in  the  inscriptions, 
is  invariably  referred  to  as  Ma'an  Mutsran  (the  Mi- 
naeans  of  Mutsran),  while  Waga’  (on  the  Red  Sea), 
el-Oela  (where  Euting  discovered  a number  of  Mi- 
naean  inscriptions),  and  Yathrib  (Medina)  formed, 
respectively,  the  western,  eastern  and  southern 
boundaries.  It  is  by  no  means  an  insignificant  fact 
that  the  Minaeans  procured  their  female  slaves  from 
Waga’  and  Yathrib,  as  well  as  from  the  countries 
adjoining  Mutsran,  i.e.  from  Mitsr  (Egypt),  Gaza, 
Moab,  Ammon,  Dedan  and  Kedar  (vide  supra , pp. 
237  et  seq.).  Moreover,  as  their  inscriptions  clearly 
show,  the  Minaeans  not  only  carried  on  a trade  in 
incense  with  Egypt,  Gaza,  Ashur  and  ’Ibr  naharan 
(vide  Chap,  viii.),  but  must  also  have  exercised  for 
centuries  an  influence  on  the  country  east  of  the  Jor- 
dan—whence  the  Midianites  in  the  Story  of  Joseph 
came — a fact  which  is  demonstrated  by  the  large 
number  of  South  Arabian  place-names,  dating  from 
the  time  of  the  Judges,  at  latest,  which  recur  in  that 
region. 

To  begin  with,  the  name  of  Ma'an  itself  is  repeated 
in  the  Ma'an  to  the  south  of  Petra  mentioned  above, 
then  in  Ma'on  near  Hebron,  and  finally  in  another 
Ma'on  in  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan  ( vide  supra , 
p.  76,  note  1).  The  name  (which  appears  as  Magan 
in  the  cuneiform  texts)  was  originally  applied  to  the 
north-eastern  part  of  Arabia  (Yemamaand  Bahrein), 


272 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


the  Babylonian  1 “ country  of  the  Sea,”  the  cradle  of 
South  Arabian  civilization;2  Hadramaut  (including 
Kataban)  and  the  South  Arabian  Maan  marked  the 
further  stages  of  its  growth,  while  Maan  near  Petra, 
and  the  two  Ma'ons  in  Palestine,  were  the  latest 
tendrils  thrown  out  towards  the  North-west.  The 
name  of  the  Hadramautic  and  South-west  Arabian 
city  Shibam  is  found  in  Sebam  (originally  pro- 
nounced Shebam)  and  Sibma  near  Hesbon,  while 
the  name  of  the  Minaean  capital  Karnavu  is  recog- 
nized in  Ashteroth-Karnaim  in  Bashan ; with  Ash- 
toreth  we  may  compare  the  interesting  variant,  Be- 
Eshterah,  in  Josh.  xxi.  27,  a form  which  cannot  be 
rightly  explained  except  by  a reference  to  the  South 
Arabian  personal  name  Bi-Athtar  ( = by  or  with 
Astar).3  Yathimat,  a district  belonging  to  the  tribe 
of  'Akib  re-appears  in  Yeshimoth  (Num.  xxi.  20),  the 
Hadramautic  Mepha'at,  in  Mephaat  in  Moab,4  the 
Katabanian  capital  Tamna'  in  the  name  of  the  Edom- 
ite tribe  Timna'  (Gen.  xxxvi.  40),  the  Katabanian 
district  of  Tsinnat  (which  Glaser  declares  to  have 

1 The  Arabic  designation  Bahran,  which  later  on  was  mistaken  for  a 
dual  form  (hence  the  modern  name  Bahrein),  was  originally  nothing 
more  than  an  Arabic  translation  of  the  Babylonian  term  mat  tamti  = 
“country  of  the  Sea;”  cf.  also  the  name  Tihama  = Sea,  applied  to  the 
west  coast  of  Arabia. 

2Cf.  Eduard  Glaser,  Skizze , ii.  p.  250,  where  a similar  view  is 
clearly  expressed,  though,  at  the  time  Glaser  was  writing,  attention  had 
not  yet  been  drawn  to  the  intimate  relations  which  existed  between  the 
Arabs  and  Babylonians  in  the  time  of  Khammurabi. 

3 Cf.  also  the  names  Ba  'Anah  (=  by  Anat),  Be-Dad  (=  by  Hadad), 
and  Ba-'Asa  (=  by  Asit  ?). 

4 Cf.  from  the  same,  the  root  Yapa',  which  occupies  a very  large  place  in 
the  South  Arabian  language,  Yap'an(or  Yapi'an),  and  the  Hebrew  place- 
name  Yapi  'a. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  273 

been  the  site  of  a celebrated  temple),  in  the  name  of 
the  Wilderness  of  Tsinnah.  Moreover,  the  names 
of  Mount  Nebo  and  Mount  Sinai,  as  also  of  the 
wilderness  of  Sin,  are  probably  of  South  Arabian 
rather  than  Babylonian  origin,  for  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Hadramaut  and  Katabania  had  borrowed  the 
gods  Sin  and  Nebo  from  the  Babylonians : 1 besides 
the  Arabic  tribal  name  Nebayoth  comes  from  Nebo, 
for  it  was  a favourite  practice  to  throw  the  names 
of  deities  into  the  feminine  plural  as  a sign  of  maj- 
esty.2 And  lastly,  it  is  to  be  noted  in  this  connec- 
tion, that  in  Ashtar-Kamosh,  the  deity  who  occupies 
the  chief  place  in  the  Moabite  Pantheon,  we  have 
the  same  form  of  this  divine  name  as  that  found  in 
South  Arabia,  the  feminine  termination  being  absent 
from  both  (cf.  on  the  other  hand,  the  Canaanite  Ash- 
toreth  or  Astarte). 

In  the  Mesa  inscription  (ninth  century  B.C.)  the 
Moabites  seem  to  have  fallen  completely  under  the 
influence  of  Canaan  ; the  language  used  by  them  is 
almost  identical  with  Hebrew,  and  their  script  is — 
not  the  Minaeo-Sabaean— but  the  Canaanite.  Their 
spelling,  however,  has,  in  places,  a strong  affinity 
with  that  of  the  Minaean  inscriptions.  These  latter 
differ  from  the  Sabaean,  among  other  things,  in  the 
frequent  use  of  the  letter  h to  denote  a long  a and 
short  i,  just  as  in  German  h is  used  to  indicate  the 

1 The  former  under  the  name  Sin,  the  latter  as  Anbai — the  original 
Babylonian  name  being  Nabiu. 

2 Cf.  Baaloth,  Ashtaroth,  Anatot ; in  Babylonia  the  forms  Sinatu, 
Shamas-hatu,  also  occur,  the  two  last  as  masculine  personal  names  in  the 
contract  tablets  of  the  Khammurabi  Dynasty. 

18 


274 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


lengthening  of  a vowel;1  so  too,  in  Hebrew,  in  cer- 
tain cases,  the  letter  li  is  used  for  a long  a (e.g.  Milkah 
for  Milka,  originally  Milkat),  Deborah  for  Debora, 
banah  — he  was  building,  for  band , a contraction 
from  banaya ) and  for  a long  e (e.g.yibneh  — he  builds, 
for  yibne,  a contraction  from  yibnai).  The  Moabite 
language  shares  this  peculiarity  in  spelling,  of  which 
there  are  no  instances  in  Phoenician,  but  it  sometimes 
employs  it  in  cases  where  Hebrew  does  not,  e.g.  in 
the  place-names  Mehdeba’  (Hebr.  Medeba’)  and  Ne- 
boh  (Hebr.  Nebo);  Moabite  therefore,  as  far  as 
spelling  is  concerned,  is  more  akin  to  Minaean  than 
to  Hebrew^.  The  only  possible  inference  which  can 
be  drawn  from  this  is  that  both  the  Moabites  and 
Hebrews,  during  the  period  prior  to  their  adoption 
of  the  Canaanite  language,  that  is,  w'hile  they  still 
spoke  a pure  Arabic  dialect,2  must  have  originally 
employed  the  Minaean  script  in  place  of  the  so- 
called  Phoenician  or  Canaanitish  ; for  in  no  other 
way  can  this  remarkable  fact  be  satisfactorily  ex- 

1 It  may  serve  to  reassure  critics  of  the  present  volume  who  have  read 
the  strictures  in  Mordtmann’s  Beitrdge  zur  minaischen  Epigraphik, 
pp.  78  et  seq.  (published  at  Weimar  in  January  1897),  and  are  inclined 
to  doubt  this  fact  and  to  regard  the  deductions  I make  from  it  as  un- 
convincing, if  I state  that  I have  gone  into  the  whole  matter  de  novo , 
and  find  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  about  the  purely  graphic 
character  of  the  form  in  question  ; cf.  my  paper,  entitled  Das  graphische 
h des  minaischen , in  the  Mitth.  der  vorderasiat.  Gesellsch.  of  Berlin. 

2 That  this  must  have  been  so  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrews  is  evident, 
not  only  from  the  form  of  the  earliest  Hebrew  personal  names,  but  from 
many  other  peculiarities  of  their  language.  Cf.  in  Ex.  xvi.  15,  the  ques- 
tion man  hd  = 4’  What  (really  ‘ who’)  is  that?  ” for  which  in  Canaanite 
(and  therefore  in  post-Mosaic  Hebrew  also)  would  be  said  mi  hti  (e.g. 
Gen.  xxvii.  33). 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  275 


plained.  The  period  in  question  was,  in  the  case  of 
the  Hebrew,  and  probably  in  that  of  the  Moabites 
as  well,  the  interval  which  elapsed  between  Abra- 
ham and  Joshua.  This  serves  to  account  for  the 
alternative  forms  of  the  name  of  Abraham,  which 
was  originally  Abram,  though  the  spelling  Abrahm 
(pronounced  Abram)  also  occurs.  Afterwards,  when 
this  spelling  (which  when  applied  to  the  internal  ele- 
ments of  words  has  no  parallel  outside  the  Minaean 
inscriptions)  came  to  be  no  longer  understood,  the 
name  was  changed  into  its  present  form,  Ab-raham, 
a word  which  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  explain 
by  any  ascertained  principle  of  Semitic  name-for- 
mation, and  the  passage  in  Gen.  xvii.  5 seems  an  in- 
terpolation intended  to  account  for  the  alteration. 
This  fact  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  study 
of  the  origin  of  the  earlier  Hebrew  literature,  since 
it  permits  us  to  assume  confidently  that  a certain, 
and  not  inconsiderable,  portion  of  the  tradition  on 
which  Genesis  is  based  had  already  been  reduced 
to  writing  in  the  time  of  Moses.  When,  therefore, 
the  Israelites,  after  taking  permanent  possession  of 
the  region  west  of  the  Jordan,  came  to  adopt  the 
Canaanite  language  and  script,1  these  sacred  docu- 
ments, which  had  increased  in  number  during  the 
time  of  Moses,  owing  to  the  addition  of  the  law  and 
of  the  account  of  its  origin,  were  naturally  subjected 
to  the  processes  of  paraphrasing,  translation,  and — 

1 There  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  assuming  that  the  Canaanite 
(or  so-called  Phoenician)  script  was  in  use  in  Palestine  during  the  Tel 
el-Amarna  period  ; at  that  time,  however,  it  had  not  yet  been  officially 
employed  as  the  medium  of  diplomatic  correspondence  with  Egypt. 


276 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


it  is  needless  to  deny — of  recension  as  well.  These 
facts  naturally  place  the  whole  question  of  the  dis- 
tinction of  the  sources  in  a new  light. 

And  now  let  us  leave  Moab  and  return  to  Midian. 
This  region,  which  is  mentioned  in  the  Minaean  in- 
scriptions under  the  name  of  Mutsran,  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  history  of  Moses  and  of  the 
Mosaic  Priestly  Law.  As  we  have  seen,  the  geo- 
graphical position  of  Midian  coincided  with  that  of 
the  Minaean  Mutsran  (Ma'an,  Mutsran),  and  the 
Midianites  who  appear  on  the  scene  in  the  story 
of  Joseph  were  identical  with  the  Minaean  incense- 
merchants.  But  this  is  not  all.  Here,  too,  dwelt 
Regu-el  Jethro,1  the  “ Priest  of  Midian,”2  with  whom 
Moses  took  refuge,  whose  son-in-law  he  became, 
with  whom,  later  on,  Moses  solemnly  “ ate  bread  be- 
fore God  ” (Ex.  xviii.  12),  and  to  whom  Moses  was 
indebted  for  detailed  advice  as  to  legislation  for  the 
Israelites  (Ex.  xviii.  19  et  seq.).  If  we  add  to  this  the 
fact,  that  it  is  in  the  Minaean  inscriptions  found  in 
Mutsran- — viz.  in  the  fragments  discovered  by  Eu- 
ting  at  el-Oela— -that  we  find  references  to  priests 
and  priestesses  of  the  god  Wadd  (cf.  p.  79),  in  which 
the  word  lavizt  (fem.  lavi'at) 3 — a term  identical  with 

1 In  Minaean  the  name  appears  as  Ridsvu-il  Vitran. 

2 Kohen  Midyan.  Cf.  in  reference  to  kohen  my  remarks  on  p.  17 
supra. 

3 See  my  Aufsatze  und  Abhandlungen,  pp.  30  et  seq.  In  the  revised 
edition  of  the  Euting  Inscriptions  recently  published  by  J.  H.  Mordt- 
mann,  which,  by  the  way,  is  really  the  first  edition  worthy  of  the  name, 
since  it  is  the  first  which  complies  with  the  requirements  set  forth  on  p. 
13  of  my  Aufsatze  und  Abhandlungen , even  Mordtmann  admits  (p.  43) 
that  I am  right  in  identifying  lavi'u  with  Levi. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  2JJ 

the  Hebrew  Levi  or  Levite — is  employed,  it  will  be 
readily  admitted  that  quite  anew  light  is  thus  thrown 
on  the  intimate  relationship  which  subsisted  between 
Moses  and  “ the  Priest  of  Midian” — a relationship 
which  has  hitherto  received  far  less  attention  than 
it  really  deserves.  The  probability  is,  therefore, 
that  if  we  were  to  submit  the  ideas  and  language 
(and  particularly  the  ritual  terms)  of  the  “ Priestly 
Code”  to  a more  systematic  examination,  we  should 
find  many  other  traces  of  early  Arabian  influences, 
all  of  them  naturally  attributable  to  Moses’  residence 
in  the  land  of  Midian.  The  altar  of  incense,  for  in- 
stance, seems  from  the  description  we  get  of  it,  in 
Ex.  xxx.  i et  seq.,  to  have  been  little  more  than  a 
replica  of  the  Minaean  altars,  but  on  a somewhat 
larger  scale  ; 1 the  use  of  incense,  which  plays  such 
an  important  part  in  the  “ Priestly  Code,”  is  another 
point  of  contact,  which  is  further  evidenced  by  such 
direct  Arabic  words  as  tamid  (cf.  p.  17),  ' olah  — 
Burnt-offering,2  azkarah , etc.  This  last  expression, 
which  is  usually  translated  as  the  “sweet  savour” 
(of  the  meat-offering,  or  Minchah),  really  means,  as 
a reference  to  Levit.  ii.  9 and  16  will  shew,  the  com- 
bustible part  of  the  meat-offering  (consisting  of  the 
finest  meal  and  incense),  which  gave  forth  a partic- 

1 Cf.  for  instance,  the  illustration  given  in  Glaser’s  Mitthcilungen 
(Prague,  1886),  p.  75.  The  “crown  of  gold  round  about”  (Ex.  xxx.  3) 
is  here  represented  by  the  projection  on  the  top  of  the  altar,  and  even 
the  “horns”  are  suggested  by  the  bullock’s  head  (with  a sun  between 
the  horns)  which  can  be  distinguished  on  one  side  of  the  projection. 

2 Arab,  ghaliyat,  a kind  of  incense,  a cognate  form  is  ghalwa  ; cf.  also 
the  verb  ghala , used  of  the  bubbling  of  a pot  of  meat,  and  ghali. , a par- 
ticiple from  it  which  means  “ fat”  of  meat. 


278  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

ularly  agreeable  odour ; it  cannot  be  rightly  ex- 
plained except  through  the  Arabic.  The  word  is 
not  even  Hebrew  in  form  ; it  is  a broken  plural  form 
(azkdr)  from  zakar  (Arab,  dhakar),  and  means  the 
“ male  ” (or  best)  kinds  of  incense,  full  particulars  of 
which  may  be  found  in  the  dictionaries  compiled 
by  native  Arab  scholars.  Even  the  ceremonies  ob- 
served on  the  great  Day  of  Atonement  (Lev.  xvi.) 
serve  to  remind  us  of  early  Arabian  sacrificial 
usages  and  early  Arabian  ideas ; the  demon  of  the 
Wilderness  Az-azel  [Lev.  xvi.  10]  translated  in  the 
A.V.  “ scapegoat,”  finds  a counterpart  in  Uzza,  a 
divinity  who,  the  Minaean  inscriptions  inform  us, 
was  known  to  the  ancient  Dedanites  (cf.  supra , p. 
238),  and,  on  the  other  side,  in  the  Arabic  root 
azala,  which  embodies  the  ideas  of  barrenness  and 
infinity  associated  with  the  desert. 

But,  undoubtedly,  the  most  striking  feature  in  the 
history  of  the  Mosaic  Code — especially  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  when  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  fact  that  it 
originated  “ in  the  wilderness,”  and  was  thus  only 
meant  for  a nomadic  race  — is  to  be  found  in  the 
magnificent  appointments  of  the  tabernacle  and  of 
the  high-priest,  and  in  the  elaborate  ritual  prescribed 
by  it.  And  it  is  remarkable  in  this  connection,  that 
it  is  from  the  so-called  “ Priestly  Code,”  which  is 
held  by  Wellhausen  and  his  school  to  have  been 
first  composed  in  post-exilic  times,  that  we  receive 
the  fullest  details  on  both  these  points.  When  we 
come  to  reflect,  however,  that  Moses  (whose  name 
even  is  of  Egyptian  origin)  grew  up  and  was  edu- 
cated in  a country  where  he  had  every  opportunity 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS 

for  observing  the  gorgeous  ceremonial  daily  prac- 
tised at  the  court  of  Pharaoh’s  daughter,  and  that 
afterwards  he  had  spent  years  among  the  Minaean 
priesthood,  in  the  house  of  the  high  priest  Jethro 
in  the  land  of  Midian,  it  surely  need  not  surprise  us 
to  find  him  endeavouring  to  introduce  the  observ- 
ance of  a similar  elaborate  ritual  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen.  The  time  of  Moses  was,  of  all  others, 
the  most  opportune  for  the  inauguration  of  such  a 
ritual,  whereas  it  would  have  been  scarcely  possible 
to  select  a less  favourable  period  than  that  of  the 
Babylonian  Captivity  or  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding it.  The  chief  characteristic  of  the  Judaistic 
movement  which  took  place  under  Ezekiel  and 
Ezra,  was  not  that  it  created  a new  Law  and  put 
it  forward  as  the  sole  and  sufficient  dogma  to  which 
members  of  the  Jewish  faith  were  henceforth  to 
conform,  but  that  it  harked  back  beyond  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Prophets,  by  a single  step,  to  primitive 
ages,  and  strove,  in  a one-sided  fashion,  to  artificial- 
ly galvanize  into  life  long-forgotten  ordinances.  As 
might  have  been  expected — since  no  man  can  hope 
to  set  back  the  hands  of  time  with  impunity— the 
result  was  a sort  of  fossil-form  of  religion. 

The  following  remarkable  and  surprising  fact  fur- 
nishes direct  evidence  that  Moses  was  not  only  in- 
fluenced by  Jethro,  but  that  he  also  adopted  many 
of  the  forms  of  Egyptian  worship. 

Every  one  will  remember  the  instructions  given 
by  Moses  in  regard  to  the  ouches  of  gold,  and  two 
chains  of  pure  gold  in  the  form  of  twisted  cords, 
which  were  to  form  the  shoulder-pieces  of  the  high- 


280 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


priest’s  dress,  and  the  so-called  khoshen  (literally 
“ ornament,”  “ beauty  ”),  or  breastplate  of  judgment, 
which  was  to  be  set  with  precious  stones,  in  four 
rows  of  three  stones  each,  symbolical  of  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel  (Ex.  xxviii.  13  et  seq.).  Now,  Adolf 
Erman,  in  his  magnificent  and  scholarly  work, 
Aegypten  und  dgyptisches  Leben  im  Alter  turn  (Tubin- 
gen, 1885),  on  pp*  402  et  seq.,  assures  us  that:  “In 
the  time  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  dynasties 
{i.e.  shortly  before  the  time  of  Moses)  the  chief-priest 
of  Memphis  still  wore  as  his  distinctive  sign  of  office 
the  same  wondrous  neck-ornament  which  had  been 
borne  by  his  predecessor  under  the  fourth  dynasty.” 1 
On  the  next  page  he  gives,  without  further  com- 
ment, a cliche  of  this  neck-ornament ; from  the 
shoulders  or  neck  two  parallel  rows  of  cords  de- 
scend obliquely  to  the  breast ; the  cords  cross  one 
another,  and  at  every  point  of  intersection  there  is 
a little  ball,  or  a small  ornament  in  the  shape  of  a 
cross  (in  reality  intended  to  represent  the  Egyptian 
ankh , or  symbol  for  life).  If  we  examine  the  picture 
carefully,  we  can  make  out  that  from  top  to  bottom 
there  are  four  rows  of  these  ornaments,  each  of 
which  is  composed  of  precious  stones,  and  that 
(again  reckoning  from  top  to  bottom)  there  are 


1 Cf.  also  Erman’s  short  paper,  entitled  “ Azis  dem  Grab  eines  Hohen- 
priesters  von  Memphis in  the  Zeitschr , fiir  agypt . Sprache  und  Al- 
terthumskunde , vol.  xxxiii.  (1895)  pp.  18 — 24,  where  an  illustration  is 
given  (p.  22)  of  this  interesting  breast-ornament,  which  was  called  by 
the  Egyptians  se'eh  (pronounced  se'ekk)\  but  neither  in  this  paper,  nor  in 
the  larger  work  quoted  above,  does  Erman  notice  its  obvious  similarity 
to  the  breast-plate  of  the  Israelite  priests. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  28 1 


three  crosses  and  three  balls,  then  three  more 
crosses  and  three  more  balls,  an  arrangement  which 
very  nearly  resembles  that  prescribed  in  Ex.  xxviii. 
1 7 — 20.  Moreover,  on  both  right  and  left  of  this  or- 
nament, which  was  worn  by  the  Egyptian  priests  in 
the  centre  of  the  breast,  there  are  two  symbolical 
figures,  also  attached  to  the  ouch,  which  was  invari- 
ably made  of  the  same  precious  metal  as  the  cords 
which  were  attached  to  them,  but  more  massive  ; on 
the  right  is  a sparrow-hawk,  on  the  left  a jackal. 
The  two  latter  were  sacred  to  Horus  and  Anubis, 
who  play  an  important  part  in  the  Egyptian  cult  of 
the  dead ; as  figures  on  the  priestly  badge,  however, 
they  were  apparently  symbolical  of  prophecy,  and 
were  probably  worn  during  the  giving  of  oracles. 
In  Ex.  xxviii.  30  we  read,  “ And  thou  shalt  put  in 
the  breast-plate  of  judgment  ( khoshen ) the  Urim  and 
the  Thummim  (R.  V.  margin,  “the  Lights  and  the 
Perfections  ”) ; and  they  shall  be  upon  Aaron’s  heart 
when  he  goeth  in  before  the  Lord  ; and  Aaron  shall 
bear  the  judgment  (oracle)  of  the  children  of  Israel 
upon  his  heart  before  the  Lord  continually.”  In 
regard  to  the  names  of  the  twelve  gems,  one  of 
them  at  any  rate  is  an  Egyptian  loan-word,  viz. 
leshem  — hyacinth  or  opal,  Egypt,  rieshem , and  prob- 
ably achlamah , also  ( = jasper  or  amethyst,  Egypt. 
ekhndme)} 

1 In  this  case,  the  hypothesis  put  forward  on  p.  204,  viz.  that  achlamah 
was  connected  with  (he  name  of  the  race  Achlamu  must  be  abandoned, 
unless  we  are  prepared  to  assume  that  ekhndme  was  also  originally  named 
after  the  Achlamites,  and  that  the  Israelites  borrowed  the  word  from  the 
Egyptians. 


282 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


The  almost  absolute  similarity  between  the  breast- 
ornament  of  the  Egyptian  priests  of  the  later  Empire, 
and  that  of  the  Israelites  described  in  the  so-called 
Priestly  Code,  affords  food  for  reflection,  and  can 
scarcely  be  explained  except  by  assuming  that  it  was 
borrowed  from  the  Egyptians  in  the  time  of  Moses. 
And  where  a high-priest  stands  at  the  head  of  affairs, 
we  naturally  infer  from  this  the  existence  of  an  in- 
ferior clergy ; similarly,  an  elaborate  ritual — such  as 
Moses  evidently  had  in  view,  and  in  a great  meas- 
ure actually  brought  into  use,  in  so  far  as  the  con- 
ditions of  life  in  the  desert  permitted  — naturally 
pre-supposes  a sanctuary  and  a numerous  staff  of 
attendants.  The  relations  between  the  priestly  class 
and  the  ordinary  Levites  or  servants  of  the  Temple, 
furnish  the  modern  critics  of  the  Pentateuch  with 
their  main  argument  in  favour  of  arranging  the 
chronological  sequence  of  the  different  sources  in 
the  following  order  : (i)  the  Jehovist  narrative,  (2) 
Deuteronomy  (seventh  century  B.C.),  and  (3)  Priestly 
Code  (post-exilic),  the  Ideal  Law,  propounded  by  the 
priest  Ezekiel  (Ez.  xliv. — xlvi.)  in  the  time  of  the  Cap- 
tivity being  adduced  as  the  obvious  connecting  link 
between  Deuteronomy  and  the  Priestly  Code.  The 
critics  tell  us  that  in  Deuteronomy  no  distinction  is 
drawn  between  the  Levitical  priests  and  the  ordi- 
nary Levites  who  belonged  to  the  lower  grade  of 
temple  ministrants;  and  that  even  a provincial  Le- 
vite  when  he  came  up  to  Jerusalem  was  permitted 
to  “ minister  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  his  God  even 
as  all  his  brethren  the  Levites  do  which  stand  there 
before  the  Lord  ” (Deut.  xviii.  6 et  seq).  Then,  we 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  283 

are  assured  that  in  572  B.c.  (or  about  twenty-five 
years  after  the  Israelites  had  been  led  away  captive 
to  Babylon),  Ezekiel  came  forward  with  a totally 
new  pretension,  viz.  that  as  a punishment  for  their 
transgressions,  the  Levites  were  not  to  be  (any 
longer)  allowed  to  approach  the  temple  for  the  pur- 
pose of  performing  their  priestly  duties  there,  this 
privilege  being  specially  reserved  for  those  Leviti- 
cal  priests  who,  at  the  time  when  the  Israelites  went 
astray  after  idols,  protested  against  it  and  ministered 
unto  Yahveh  in  the  sanctuary,  namely  the  sons  of 
Zadok  (Ezekiel  xliv.  9 et  seq.) ; in  fact,  the  Levites 
were  reduced  to  the  status  of  mere  underlings  and 
servants  of  the  temple.  In  the  Priestly  Code,  how- 
ever, this  distinction  between  Priests  and  Levites, 
which — so  the  critics  inform  us — -was  first  intro- 
duced by  Ezekiel,  is  thrown  back  into  Mosaic  times; 
the  sons  of  Aaron,  moreover,  (who,  like  Moses  him- 
self, were  descended  from  the  tribe  of  Levi,)  are 
represented  as  set  apart  for  the  priesthood  from  the 
beginning,  while  the  (other)  Levites  were  made  to 
be  mere  bearers  and  underlings.  According  to  this 
view,  there  is,  so  they  say,  a clear  historical  progres- 
sion from  Deuteronomy  to  Ezekiel,  and  from  Eze- 
kiel’s programme  on  to  the  Priestly  Code,  in  which 
Ezekiel’s  aims  find  their  ultimate  realization.  In 
order  to  make  the  position  quite  clear,  I should  like  to 
point  out  that  Zadok  and  Abiathar  were  high-priests 
in  the  time  of  David,  and  that  after  the  rejection  of 
Abiathar  in  the  reign  of  Solomon,  the  office  was 
vested  in  Zadok  alone  ; Zadok  is  described  as  the 
son  of  Ahitub,  who  is  probabty  identical  with  the 


284  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Ahitub,  son  of  Phinehas,  son  of  Eli,  mentioned  in  1 
Sam.  xiv.  3,  whereas  the  later,  official  genealogies  of 
the  high-priests  trace  the  descent  of  Zadok,  son  of 
Ahitub,  direct  from  Amariah,  the  eighth  in  descent 
from  Aaron.  Probably,  therefore,  the  real  fact  was 
that  Zadok,  though  a descendant  of  Aaron,  did  not 
spring  from  the  direct  line.  If  this  was  so,  it  is  prob- 
able that  Ezekiel  designedly  describes  those  who 
were  to  be  henceforward  alone  eligible  for  the  office 
of  priest — not  as  sons  of  Aaron — but  sons  of  Zadok, 
especially  as  there  must  at  that  time  have  been  other 
descendants  of  Aaron  in  existence  besides  the  sons 
of  Zadok. 

Though  the  above  line  of  argument  may,  at  the 
first  glance,  seem  quite  unanswerable,  yet  an  unprej- 
udiced consideration  of  Deuteronomy  will  speedily 
reveal  the  fact  that  even  there  a distinction  is 
clearly  made  between  the  Levitic  Priests  of  the  cen- 
tral Holy  Place — with  “the  Priest ” (Deut.  xvii.  12, 
xx.  2)  at  their  head — and  their  lesser  brethren,  the  so- 
called  provincial  priests,  who  were  distributed  over 
the  whole  country.  Indeed,  the  18th  chapter  of 
Deuteronomy  (1 — 8),  which  specially  deals  with  the 
status  of  priests,  gives  one,  by  its  very  meagreness 
and  brevity,  the  impression  of  being  merely  a re- 
capitulation of  directions  which  had  been  set  forth 
in  greater  detail  on  some  previous  occasion.  If  this 
be  so,  and  if  Deuteronomy  really  refers  to  an  origi- 
nal distinction  between  the  “ Levite  Priests  ” (=  “the 
Sons  of  Aaron”  of  the  Priestly  Code)  and  “the  Le- 
vites,”  then  Wellhausen’s  line  of  argument  not  only 
loses  a great  deal  of  its  force,  but  the  main  pillar  of 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  285 

the  theory  he  has  erected  comes  tumbling  about  his 
ears.  For,  in  that  case,  Ezekiel’s  pretensions  appear 
in  a totally  new  light;  a closer  examination  reveals 
the  fact  that  Ezekiel  merely  follows  Deuteronomy 
when  he  seeks  to  enforce  the  original  distinction  be- 
tween the  Levites  and  Levite  Priests,  the  latter  being 
attached  to  the  Central  Holy  Place  at  Jerusalem. 
Seeing  that  the  Levites  had  usurped  priestly  func- 
tions in  the  high  - places,  it  was  inevitable  that 
an  enforcement  of  the  provisions  of  the  Priestly 
Code — with  which  Ezekiel,  in  his  capacity  as  priest, 
must  have  been  perfectly  familiar,  and  which  he 
now  wished  to  set  in  operation — should  bring  upon 
them  signal  punishment  and  degradation.  More- 
over, in  Ezekiel’s  prophetic  vision  of  the  new  temple 
and  its  arrangement,  we  can  trace  from  the  be- 
ginning (Ezek.  xl.  3)  an  almost  unmistakable  allu- 
sion to  Moses  himself ; in  his  dream  Ezekiel  finds 
himself  on  the  top  of  a high  mountain,  from  whence 
he  has  a view  of  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem,  and  there 
a man,  whose  “ appearance  was  like  the  appear- 
ance of  brass,  with  a line  of  flax  in  his  hand  and 
a measuring  reed,”  gives  him  the  dimensions  of  the 
new  temple;  does  not  this  at  once  remind  us  of 
Moses,  who  from  the  summit  of  Mount  Nebo  was 
allowed  to  take  one  look  at  that  holy  land  which  he 
himself  was  never  to  enter?  The  man  of  brass  is 
none  other  than  Moses,  whose  “ eye  was  not  dim, 
nor  his  natural  force  abated,”  when  Yahveh  shewed 
him  from  the  hill-top  the  whole  country  that  had 
been  promised  to  the  Israelites.  No  modern  critic 
will  ever  succeed  in  permanently  dislodging  this 


286 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


venerable  brazen  figure  from  his  lofty  watch-tower, 
in  spite  of  all  triumphant  assertions  to  the  contrary. 
For  if  we  refuse  to  credit  him  and  his  generation 
with  the  Priestly  Code,  with  Deuteronomy  and  its 
touching  valedictory  oration,  with  the  Jehovistic 
Book  of  the  Covenant,  or  even  with  the  Decalogue, 
what  is  there  left  of  Moses  beyond  a mere  empty 
unsubstantial  shadow  ? 

The  fact  that  the  Mosaic  Law  in  its  most  com- 
plete form,  as  set  forth  in  the  Priestly  Code,  was 
not  fully  enforced  until  after  the  Babylonian  Cap- 
tivity, cannot  possibly  be  regarded  as  a proof  that 
it  did  not  come  into  existence  until  this  later  period. 
After  Moses  and  Joshua  came  the  turbulent  tran- 
sitional period  of  the  Judges,  a time,  howev.er,  which 
possesses  a special  importance  for  the  question  be- 
fore us,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  was  then  that  the 
Israelites  adopted  a new  language — the  Canaanite — 
a tongue  which  was,  it  is  true,  nearly  allied  to  their 
old  idiom,  but  still  a new  tongue  to  them.  It  was  at 
this  time,  too,  that  the  foreign  element  Baal  first  made 
its  appearance  in  Israelitish  personal  names,  and  that 
the  ancient  traditions  of  the  race  were  translated  into 
Hebrew,  and  subjected  to  what  would  seem  to  have 
been  a more  or  less  thorough  recension.1  It  was  not 

1 Cf.  p.  274,  where  this  point  is  briefly  dealt  with.  By  “ Hebrew,”  I 
mean  here  the  language  which  we  find  presented  to  us  in  the  pages  of 
the  Old  Testament,  and  which  was  essentially  identical  with  Phoenician, 
its  points  of  difference  from  Phoenician  representing  survivals  from  the 
earlier  idiom  of  Israel.  Did  we  but  possess  a fuller  knowledge  of  Phoe- 
nician, we  should  be  able  to  determine  with  greater  exactitude  how 
much  of  Hebrew  is  genuine  Canaanite  and  how  much  is  Arabic.  I must 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  287 


until  the  time  of  Samuel  and  David  that  things  began 
to  grow  more  settled.  The  first  king  to  find  himself 
in  a position  to  insist  on  the  observance  of  the  Mo- 
saic Code  was  Solomon,  but  the  temple  which  he 
had  built  was  scarcely  finished,  when,  led  away  by 
the  influence  of  his  wives,  he  allowed  sacrifices  to  be 
offered  unto  strange  gods,  and  immediately  after  his 
death  came  the  deplorable  political  schism  which  re- 
sulted in  the  permanent  separation  of  the  little  prov- 
ince of  Judah,  the  seat  of  the  new  central  Holy 
Place,  from  the  rest  of  Israel.  And,  be  it  noted,  it 
was  in  the  northern  kingdom  that  the  final  recen- 
sion of  both  the  Book  of  Judges  and  the  Jehovistic 
narrative  was  carried  out.  These  two  books,  ac- 
cording to  the  modern  critics,  contain  little  or  no 
evidence  to  show  that  the  Priestly  Code  was  then  in 
operation,  and  this  fact  is  regarded  as  one  of  the 
main  arguments  in  favour  of  their  theory  as  to  the 
post-exilic  origin  of  the  Code.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, however,  that  the  priests  of  the  northern 
kingdom  had  only  too  often  good  reasons  for  either 
modifying  or  entirely  suppressing  portions  of  the 
traditions  which  would  otherwise  have  become  a 
standing  reproach  to  themselves.  For  instance,  the 
oft-quoted  passage  in  Ex.  xx.  24,  “ An  altar  of  earth 
thou  shalt  make  unto  me,  and  shalt  sacrifice  there- 
on thy  burnt  offerings  and  thy  peace  offerings,  thy 
sheep  and  thine  oxen : in  every  place  where  I record 

insist,  however,  on  ihe  fact  that  the  only  persons  whom  I can  recognize 
as  competent  to  decide  questions  of  this  kind  are  those  who  are  equally 
familiar  with  Arabic  (including  the  Minaeo-Sabaean  and  Aethiopic  dia- 
lects), Babylonian,  and  Phoenician. 


288 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


my  name  I will  come  unto  thee  and  bless  thee,”1 — is 
evidently  a recension  attributable  to  the  laxer  prac- 
tice which  obtained  among  these  northern  priests, 
who  though  they  condemned  the  calf-worship  in- 
troduced by  Jeroboam,  yet  were  not  prepared  to 
deprive  the  people  of  the  blessings  of  the  national 
God  who  sat  enthroned  on  Sion.  Did  we  but  pos- 
sess a more  complete  and  detailed  tradition  in  re- 
gard to  the  time  of  the  Judges  and  the  period  of  the 
Kings,2  I am  firmly  convinced  that  Wellhausen’s 
whole  theory — even  apart  from  the  fact  that  it  is 
contradicted  by  the  testimony  of  the  monuments — 
would  at  once  collapse  like  a house  of  cards.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  the  historical  tradition  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  come  down  to  us  only  in  frag- 
ments. And  the  “popular”  character  of  the  Jeho- 
vistic  narrative,  out  of  which  Wellhausen  tries  to 
make  so  much  capital,  is  in  a great  measure  due  to 
a circumstance  which  for  a long  time  past  has  not 
received  all  the  attention  it  merits,  viz.  the  fact  that 
this  source  owes  its  distinctive  character  to  the 
northern  kingdom  (i.e.  to  Israel  rather  than  to 
Judah).  Although  this  primitive  popular  element 

1 As  opposed  to  the  phrase,  “ the  place  which  the  Lord  your  God 
shall  choose,”  which  is  so  often  and  so  emphatically  repeated  in  Deu- 
teronomy. But  such  a petty  alteration  as  that  involved  in  the  substitu- 
tion of  “ the  place”  for  ** every  place,”  is  of  little  importance  compared 
with  the  many  biassed  interpolations  with  which  Wellhausen  delights  to 
bolster  up  his  theory. 

2 Such  as  that  which  probably  furnished  part  of  the  material  for  “ the 
Midrash  of  the  Book  of  Kings,”  quoted  in  the  Books  of  the  Chronicles, 
though  there  the  facts  may  have  been  presented  in  a more  imaginative 
guise. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  289 

may  appeal  more  strongly  than  any  other  to  our 
imaginations,  it  is  scarcely  an  adequate  vehicle  for 
the  transmission  of  a lofty  and  abstract  conception 
of  the  Godhead  such  as  that  which  Moses—whose 
aim  was  misunderstood  by  his  contemporaries — was 
commissioned  to,  and  actually  did,  impart,  though 
in  doing  so  he  was  obliged  to  employ  as  an  acces- 
sory an  elaborate  system  of  sacrificial  and  ritual  ob- 
servances. As  we  have  already  had  ample  oppor- 
tunity for  observing,  these  two  opposing  principles 
(popular  and  priestly  religion)  have  existed  side  by 
side  in  Western  Asia  from  time  immemorial.  Char- 
acters such  as  Melchizedek  of  Salem  in  the  time 
of  Abraham,  or  Jethro  of  Midian,  and  Balaam  in 
the  time  of  Moses,  suggest  no  taint  of  anachro- 
nism to  any  one  who  remembers  the  religious  import 
of  the  earliest  Western  Semitic  personal  names,  and 
of  the  earliest  literary  monuments  of  Egypt  and 
Babylonia.  Of  course  the  free-thinker  who  looks  at 
all  such  matters  from  an  “ enlightened  standpoint,” 
may,  if  he  chooses,  describe  them  as  mere  “ religious 
humbug,”  or  “ priestly  trickery,”  even  though  the 
evidence  of  the  inscriptions  constrains  him  to  ac 
knowledge  that  they  date  back  to  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham or  of  the  Pyramids ; this,  after  all,  is  a question 
of  taste,  and  with  such  persons  it  would  be  useless 
to  argue  further.  When,  however,  we  find  that  a 
whole  school  of  evangelical  theologians  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  declare  that  a passage  was  at  a later  date 
composed  or  interpolated,  simply  because  they  are 
unwilling  to  recognize  the  existence  of  any  high 
moral  teaching  or  lofty  conception  of  the  Godhead 


29O  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

prior  to  the  time  of  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  or 
seventh  centuries  B.C.,  then,  in  view  of  the  facts  ad- 
duced in  the  present  volume,  we  cannot  but  regard 
their  attitude  as  a deplorably  mistaken  one,  and 
hope  that  it  may  soon  become  a thing  of  the  past. 
It  was  once  the  fashion  to  declare  that  all  passages 
in  Arabian  poetry  of  the  period  prior  to  Muham- 
med,  in  which  the  word  Allah  ( = God,  properly 
al-ilahu  = the  God,  i.e.  the  one  God)  occurred,  must 
ipso  facto  be  classed  as  later  interpolations.  At  pres- 
ent, however,  when — thanks  to  the  evidence  of  the 
later  Sabaean  inscriptions — it  becomes  every  day 
more  certain  that  hundreds  of  years  before  the  time 
of  Muhammed,  both  Judaism  and  Christianity  had 
taken  root  and  found  acceptance  in  various  places 
in  Arabia,  scholars  are  beginning  to  abandon  the 
hasty  conclusions  of  ten  years  ago  in  favour  of  the 
accepted  opinion  of  the  day.  The  same  thing  will 
happen  in  connection  with  the  criticism  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. Had  the  beginnings  of  the  Israelite  religion 
really  been  a mixture  of  Fetichism  and  ancestor- 
worship,  these  beginnings  would  have  left  their  im- 
press upon  the  language  and  could  have  been  de- 
tected by  the  method  of  comparative  philology.  It 
becomes,  however,  clearer  every  day  that  the  Sem- 
ites—and  more  particularly  the  Western  Semites — 
had  from  the  beginning  a much  purer  conception 
of  the  Deity  than  was  possessed  by  any  of  the 
other  races  of  antiquity,  such  as  the  Sumerians  or 
Aryans,  for  instance,  and  critics  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament can  no  longer  afford  to  shut  their  eyes  to 
this  fact. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  29 1 

In  regard  to  the  influence  of  Egypt  in  Mosaic 
times— an  influence  of  which  the  priestly  breast- 
plate affords  such  a striking  illustration — it  should 
further  be  pointed  out  that  there  are  quite  a number 
of  Egyptian  loan-words  to  be  found  in  the  laws  of  the 
Priestly  Code.  Under  this  head  may  be  mentioned 
such  words  as  sheti  — warp,  from  the  Egyptian  seta 
— to  spin,  or  heckle  (Bondi,  Zeitschr.  fiir  dgypt.  Spr.y 
vol.  xxxiii.  p.  1) ; zereth  — span,  from  Egyptian  tsert 
r-  hand  (Bondi,  ibid.,  vol.  xxxii.  p.  132);  soVam  = 
locust,  from  Egyptian  senhem  ; names  of  gems  such 
as  achlamah  and  leshem  (see  p.  281  ),peshet  and  pishtah 
= flax,  linen  (Egyptian  pesht ),  ephah  and  kin}  and 
probably  a number  of  other  names  for  units  of  meas- 
urement, together  with  various  personal  names  of 
the  Mosaic  epoch,  e.g.  in  the  first  place,  the  name  of 
Moses  himself  (cf.  mose  in  Thutmosis  [originally 
Tehut-mose]  and  similar  names);  then  the  names 
Phinehas,  Puti-el  (half  Egyptian,  half  Semitic,  cf. 
Poti-ph-re)  [Potiphar]  and  many  other  words,  in- 
cluding probably  the  much-debated  Pesakh  (Passah). 
In  the  case  of  no  other  religious  festival  do  we  find 
so  much  stress  laid  upon  its  memorial  character  as 
in  this,  (cf.  Ex.  xii.  14),  and  there  must  be  something 
more  than  mere  coincidence  in  the  fact  that  the 
Egyptian  word  sacha ’1 2  means  “to  call  to  mind.” 
This  shews  that  the  initial  pe  must  be  a form  of  the 
article  which  was  in  general  use  in  the  time  of  the 

1 Egyptian,  ipt  and  kin  ; the  former  borrowed  in  primitive  times  from 
Babylonian  pitu , and  the  latter  from  Babyl.  gin. 

2 Radically  related  to  the  Babylonian  sakh&ru  — “to  seek,  to  reflect 
upon,”  and  the  common  Semitic  element  zakdrn. 


292  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

later  Empire,  and  that,  therefore,  the  word  was 
originally  pe-sakh} 

This  brings  me  back  once  more  to  the  identifica- 
tion of  Arpakeshad  [Arphaxad]  with  Ur  Kasdim, 
which  has  already  been  touched  upon  on  p.  210. 
These  two  words  are  essentially  and  absolutely 
equivalent ; both  are  used  to  denote  the  original 
home  of  the  Hebrews.  Now  it  is  clear,  on  a priori 
grounds,  that  just  as  Keshad  is  equivalent  to  Kas- 
dim, so  too  Ar-is  equivalent  to  Ur-,  especially  when 
we  remember  that  in  the  Western  Semitic  script 
the  consonants  only  are  given ; the  sole  distinction 
between  the  two  expressions  in  their  earliest  written 
form  lies  in  the  element  pa  introduced  between  Ar- 
and  Keshad  in  the  former  name,  and  in  the  plural 
termination  im  affixed  to  the  second  element  of  the 
latter.  Since  tradition,  both  in  Gen.  x.  22  and  24, 
as  well  as  in  Gen.  xi.  10  et  seq.,  and  1 Chron.  i.  17 
and  24,  points  to  the  vocalization  Arpakeshad  (LXX. 
Arphaxad),  we  need  not  hesitate  to  accept  this  as 
correct.  Now  the  fact  that  Elam  and  Assur  appear 


1 My  friend  Glaser,  after  reading  my  note  on  Arpakeshad in  the 
Academy,  and  before  he  was  aware  that  the  Egyptian  word  sakha  meant 
“ to  remember,”  drew  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  pesakh  might  be  di- 
vided into  pe-  (the  Egyptian  article)  and  sakh , an  analysis  which  seems 
to  me  to  be  unassailable.  Glaser,  whose  opinion  in  regard  to  my  ex- 
planation of  Arpakeshad  is  all  the  more  deserving  of  respect,  because  he 
has  never  adopted  a partizan  attitude  on  questions  of  Old  Testament 
criticism,  after  carefully  weighing  the  alternative  interpretation  proposed 
by  Cheyne  (which  will  be  discussed  later  on),  boldly  supports  my  analysis 
Ar-pa  keshad.  His  example  is  likely  to  be  followed  by  all  those  who  re- 
fuse to  be  blinded  by  the  prejudices  which  obscure  the  vision  of  modern 
critics  of  the  Pentateuch. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  293 


in  place  of  Babel  and  Assur1  (which  are  the  names 
we  should  have  expected  to  find),  points  to  a time 
when  Babylonia  was  under  Elamite  rule ; that  is  to 
say,  to  the  epoch  of  the  Kassite  dynasty  (ca.  1700 — 
1183),  or,  in  other  words,  the  period  of  the  children 
of  Israel’s  sojourn  in  Egypt,  and  the  time  of  Moses 
and  Joshua.  In  that  case,  however,  the  pa  inserted 
between  A r (originally  Ur)  and  Keshad,  can  be  noth- 
ing else  but  the  Egyptian  article,2  since  it  cannot  be 
explained  in  any  other  way,  and  our  only  alternative 
would  be  to  strike  it  out  as  meaningless.  One  tradi- 
tion, therefore,  which  is  probably  to  be  attributed 
to  the  Jehovist  writer,  calls  Abraham’s  native  place 
Ur  Kasdim  (Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  apparently  in  order 
to  distinguish  it  from  Uru-shalem  = Jerusalem)  while 
the  other  tradition  — strange  to  say,  that  of  the 
Priestly  Code — employs  a semi-Egyptian  expression, 
Ur-pa-Keshad  (Ur  of  the  Keshad,  i.e.  of  the  Chal- 
dees). That  Egyptian  forms  of  this  kind  were  com- 
mon enough,  especially  in  the  case  of  geographical 
terms  and  of  expressions  applied  to  the  Egyptians 
themselves,  among  a race  who  had  spent  over  400 
years  in  Egypt,  is  evident  from  the  presence  of  such 
names  as  Puti-el  (Ex.  vi.  25),  “ Eleazar,  Aaron’s  son, 
took  him  one  of  the  daughters  of  Puti-el  to  wife  ” 


1 The  Elam  mentioned  here  as  one  of  the  sons  of  Shem  cannot  possi- 
bly be  identical  with  Elam  proper  ; the  ethnological  and  linguistic  differ- 
ences between  the  Elamites  and  the  Semitic  Babylonians  (the  Sumerians 
had  already  been  merged  with  the  Semites  long  before  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham) must  have  been  familiar  to  Semitic  peoples  from  the  very  earliest 
antiquity. 

2 i.e.  “Ur  of  the  Keshad  cf.  Keshed,  Gen.  xxii.  22. 


294 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


(cf.  Potiphar,  Potosiris).  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  the  son  of  this  marriage  also  received  the 
Egyptian  name  of  Phinehas. 

This  variant,  Arpakeshad  for  Ur-kasdim,  affords 
us  a striking  proof  of  the  fact  that  the  Israelites, 
during  their  stay  in  Egypt,  had  not  forgotten  the 
original  ancestor  of  their  race,  or  the  name  of  the 
place  from  whence  they  had  first  sprung.  Nay, 
more,  I confidently  assert,  that  all  the  traditions 
concerning  the  period  before  Joseph  (i.e.  of  the 
Patriarchs,  including  the  primitive  records  which 
Abraham  brought  with  him  from  Chaldaea),  which 
have  been  handed  down  to  us  in  Genesis,  in  various 
recensions,  were  even  at  that  time  current  among 
the  Israelites,  and  that,  too,  in  a written  form.  That 
it  was  impossible  for  them  to  have  borrowed  these 
traditions  from  the  Canaanites  at  a later  date  is 
conclusively  proved  by  the  evidence  of  their  names. 
For  the  names  of  the  Patriarchs,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  Israelite  contemporaries  of  Moses,  from  the 
stage  of  religious  development  which  they  reveal, 
present  so  strong  a contrast  with  those  of  the  Canaan- 
ites that,  on  this  ground  alone,  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  Abraham  can  have  been  a Canaanite 
Weli  or  Saint,  whose  worship  the  Israelites  ap- 
propriated after  their  conquest  of  Hebron.  In 
regard  to  the  place-names,  Y a'kob-el  and  Yashap-el, 
referred  to  on  p.  no,  note  i,  these  have  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  having  been  originally  formed  from 
personal  names,  and  were  either  survivals  from  some 
epoch  long  gone  by  before  the  Western  Semites  of 
Northern  Palestine  had  as  yet  become  generally 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  295 

subject  to  the  influence  of  the  Babylonian  religion, 
or  else  Ya'kob-el  was  a direct  reminiscence  of  the 
patriarch  Jacob,  dating  from  the  time  when  he 
dwelt  in  the  vicinity  of  Bethel ; in  the  latter  event, 
Ya-shap-el  must  either  have  been  founded  by  or 
received  its  name  from  a relative  of  one  of  the 
patriarchs. 

Compared  with  my  explanation  of  Arpakeshad, 
the  theory  recently  put  forward  by  Professor 
Cheyne  of  Oxford  1 can  only  be  described  as  dis- 
tinctly infelicitous — based,  as  it  is,  on  assumptions 
of  far  too  sweeping  a character.  He  suggests  that 
Shem  must  have  had  six  sons  instead  of  only  five, 
viz.  Elam,  Assur,  Arpak  — Arrapach  on  the  lower 
Zab,  Keshad,  Lud  and  Aram,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  conjunction  “ and  ” appears  between 
each  of  the  five  names  both  in  the  original  Hebrew 
text  and  in  the  Greek  translation,  and  that,  there- 
fore, at  the  very  least,  we  should  expect  “ and 
Arpak  and  Keshad,”  he  proposes  to  read  “ Arpak, 
Keshad,”  instead  of  “ Arpakeshad.”  Unfortunately, 
the  circumstance  that  we  should  in  that  case  be 
obliged  to  strike  out  the  element  “ Arpa  ” from 
Arpakeshad,  in  Gen.  x.  24  and  Gen.  xi.  10,  where 
the  name  occurs  as  that  of  an  ancestor  of  Eber’s, 
renders  this  conjecture  of  Cheyne’s  — in  itself  in- 
genious enough  — quite  inadmissible,  even  apart 
from  the  fact  that,  both  in  the  Tribute-lists  of  Thut- 
mosis  III.  and  in  the  cuneiform  texts,  Arrapach  is 
always  written  with  the  strong  aspirate  kh,  and 

1 Cf.  Cheyne’s  paper,  Professor  Homniel  on  Arphaxad. , in  the  Ex- 
positor, Feb.  1897,  pp.  145—148. 


296  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

never  with  a k.  The  reluctance  of  Wellhausen’s 
supporters  to  adopt  my  obvious  analysis  of  Arpa- 
keshad  into  Arpa-keshad  (or,  since  the  vowel  points 
are  merely  a later  addition,  Ur-pa-keshad)  can  be 
readily  understood,  since  were  they  to  do  so  they 
would  naturally  be  obliged  to  accept  the  conclusions 
which  result  from  it  — conclusions  which  demon- 
strate the  absurdity  of  their  theories.  Professor 
Cheyne  is  unable  to  conceal  the  fact  that  if  it  were 
really  possible  to  assign  the  Priestly  Code  to  a very 
early  pre-exilic  date,  such  as  the  Mosaic  period,  for 
instance,  there  would  be  nothing  astonishing  about 
a hybrid  formation  such  as  Ur-pa-Chesed,  since  it  is 
well-known  that  the  Egyptians  of  the  later  Empire 
borrowed  largely  from  the  Semites,1  and  the  Semites 
doubtless  returned  the  compliment ; he  adds,  more- 
over, that  the  matter  would  stand  on  quite  a different 
footing  if  I were  really  in  a position  to  prove  “ that 
the  personal  names  in  the  Priestly  Code  are  to  any 
large  extent  primitive  ( i.e . ancient  and  genuine),  as 
is  generally  assumed  ” — an  assumption  which  he  is 
strongly  inclined  to  question. 

Before  concluding  the  present  chapter,  however, 
I propose,  in  fulfilment  of  the  promise  made  on  p. 
26,  to  briefly  show  that  the  personal  names  assigned 
to  the  time  of  Moses  by  the  Priestly  Code,  and  more 
particularly  the  lists  of  names  in  the  Book  of  Num- 
bers, possess  precisely  the  same  features  as  the 
Arabian  personal  names  of  the  second  millennium 

1 Cf.  more  particularly  pa  ba-'al  (W.  Max  Muller,  Asien  und 
Enropa,  p.  309),  instead  of  ha-ba-al , an  absolutely  analogous  hybrid 
used  by  the  Egyptians. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  297 

B.C.,  referred  to  in  Chapter  III.  Fortunately,  the 
Arabian  personal  names  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty, 
and  the  Canaanite  names  of  the  Tel  el-Amarna 
period  dealt  with  in  Chapter  VII.,  furnish  two  def- 
inite bases  of  comparison  by  which  we  may  test  the 
earlier  Hebrew  personal  names.  They  enable  us  to 
divide  these  latter  into  two  main  groups  ; one  con- 
taining the  still  almost  purely  Arabic  names  of  the 
Mosaic  period ; the  other,  the  nomenclature  of  the 
time  of  the  Judges  with  its  strong  admixture  of 
Canaanite  elements. 

In  the  first  place,  let  us  see  whether  Wellhausen  is 
in  the  right  when  he  says,  “ The  long  lists  of  names 
in  Num.  i.,  vii.,  and  xiii.1  are  nearly  all  cast  in  the 
same  mould,  and  are  in  no  way  similar  to  genuine 
ancient  personal  names ; ” 2 or  whether  this  assertion 
is  of  the  same  hasty  and  dictatorial  character  as  that 
other  assertion  of  his,  in  regard  to  the  Greek  origin 


1 With  these,  of  course,  the  names  in  Num.  xxxiv.  should  also  be 
classed.  This  list  Wellhausen  assigns  to  the  Persian  epoch,  because  it 
contains  the  name  Parnak. 

2 Prolegomena,  2nd  ed.  p.  371,  from  which  I copied  the  above  sen- 
tence. Similarly  in  the  1st  edition,  a copy  of  which  is  in  my  own  pos- 
session, we  read  on  p.  334,  “that  these  names  have  no  parallel  in  an- 
cient times,  and  look  very  much  as  though  they  had  been  manufactured.” 
Such  names,  we  are  told,  “can  scarcely  have  been  taken  from  Mosaic 
records,  especially  those  in  which  the  verb  is  in  the  perfect  tense.”  And 
again,  “the  unquestionably  ancient  and  genuine  compounds  Ishmael, 
Israel,  Jerahmeel,  Eliezer,  Othniel,  Bethuel,  Kemuel,  are  all  of  them 
names  of  peoples  or  nations,”  whereas,  so  Wellhausen  argues,  personal 
names  compounded  with  El  do  not  occur  in  the  Jehovistic  tradition 
dealing  with  the  time  of  Moses,  nor  indeed  up  to  the  time  of  Samuel — 
all  of  which  statements  have  already  been  shewn  by  the  evidence  ad- 
duced in  Chapter  III.  to  be  inaccurate. 


298  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


of  most  of  the  Arabian  names  of  the  constellations, 
which  appear  in  his  Reste  arabischen  Heidenthums} 

In  the  lists  in  question  we  find  a large  number  of 
names  with  which  Chapter  III.  has  already  familiar- 
ized us  ; eg.  Abi-dan  = my  Father  judges,  and  Eli-ab 
= my  God  is  a Father,  Eli-dad  = my  God  is  a Rela- 
tion, Akhi-'ezer  = my  Brother  is  Help,  Akhi-ra'  (orig- 
inally Akhi-ru'a  = my  Brother  is  a Friend,  or 
Akhi-Re  = my  Brother  is  Ra  ?)  and  Akhi-hud  (from 
Akhi-yehud),  Shemu-el  (vide  p.  98),  Ammi-el  = my 
Uncle  is  God,  Ammi-hud  (from  Ammi  )^ehud,  cf. 
Yehuda),  Ammi-nadab  = my  Uncle  has  given,  and 
Ammi-shaddai  = my  Uncle  is  Shaddai  ( vide  supra , 
pp.  108  et  seq.),  to  which  may  be  added  the  allied 
forms  Gaddi-el  = my  Grandfather  is  God,  Tsuri- 
Shaddai  = Shaddai  is  my  Rock,  Tsuri-el  = my  Rock 
is  God,  Pedah-Tsur  = He  (the  Rock)  has  redeemed  ; 
cf.  Pedah-el  and  Eli-Tsur  = my  God  is  a Rock.1 2 
The  following  names,  compounded  with  El,  may 
also  be  mentioned:  Eli-tsaphan  — my  God  hath 
borrowed  (cf.  also  Num.  iii.  30),  Eli-shama'  = my 
God  hath  harkened,  El-yasaph  = my  God  hath  in- 
creased (from  Eli-yasaph),  Mi-ka-el  — Who  is  as  God 
(cf.  Mi-sha-el,  Ex.  vi.  22,  and  supra , pp.  71  and  141), 
Gamli-el  = my  recompense  is  God,  Hanni-el  = my 
Grace  is  God,  Nethan-el  = God  gave  it,  Palti-el  = 
my  redemption  is  God  (cf.  supra , p.  238),  Shelumi-el 


1 Cf.  my  exhaustive  contradiction  of  this  statement  based  on  ancient 
Arabian  poetry,  in  a paper  entitled,  Ursprung  und  Alter  der  arabischen 
Sternnamen,  in  the  Zeitschr.  der  D.  M.  Gesellsch.  vol.  xlv.  (1891)  pp. 
592 — 619.  Cf.  also  the  Appendix,  pp.  319 — 320. 

2 For  S.  Arabian  names  with  Tsuri,  cf.  Appendix,  pp.  319,  320. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  299 


= my  peace  is  God,  etc.  To  these  may  be  added 
the  abbreviated  names,  which  are  especially  numer- 
ous in  the  list  of  the  spies  given  in  Num.  xiii.,  such 
as  Bukki,  Gaddi,  Gemalli  Paid,  (cf.  Palti-el  and 
Yaphlet),  Shelomi  (cf.  Shelumi-el),  etc. ; to  this  class 
also  belong  Zimri,  Num.  xxv.  14  ( vide  supra , p.  83, 
note  2),  and  other  similar  names  occurring  in  the 
Priestly  Code.  To  complete  our  list,  we  may  note 
names  of  one  element  like  'Akran,  'Azzan,  Shiphtan, 
'Enan  (from  'Ainan),  Kislon,  Nakhshon,1  Tsu'ar  (an- 
other pure  Arabic  formation,  cf.  S.  Arabian  Tsai'ar), 
Kaleb  (cf.  supra , p.  113),  Nun  (cf.  the  name  Nunia 
in  a contract  tablet  of  the  time  of  king  Zabium), 
Raphu’a  (cf.  p.  81,  Ili-rapa’a),  Shaphat  (cf.  Shiphtan 
and  the  name  Yeho-shaphat  = Yahveh  judgeth,  as 
also  En-Mishpat,  p.  148),  and  a few  more.  The 
verb  shaphat  = to  judge,  seems,  it  is  true,  to  be 
peculiar  to  the  Canaanite  language,  the  genuine 
Arabic  name-formation  preferring  to  substitute  din 
(cf.  supra,  Abi-dan),2  but  in  view  of  the  constant  in- 
tercourse between  Canaan  and  Egypt  in  the  time  of 
the  later  Empire,  it  is  by  no  means  surprising  that 
words  of  this  kind — to  which  may  be  added  others, 
such  as  tsaphan  = to  save  (cf.  supra , Eli-tsaphan  and 
the  Phoenician  Tsaphon-Ba'al) — should  have  gained 

1 The  termination  on  shows  that  the  true  Arabian  termination  &n  ( e.g . 
in  'Akran)  was  already  being  assimilated  to  Canaanite. 

2 It  is  indeed  an  open  question  whether  the  word  shaphat  was  not  orig- 
inally spelt  with  a “ Sin,”  and  whether  there  may  not  have  been  two 
nearly  allied  verbs  shaphat , one  spelt  with  a Shin  (modified  s\  the  other 
with  a Sin  (originally  = sh),  in  which  case  the  S.  Arabian  shaphata  = to 
determine,  promise,  grant  (spelt,  it  is  true,  with  a different  t ),  would 
apply  here. 


300  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

currency  among  the  Israelites.  And  lastly,  in  re- 
gard to  the  name  Parnak,  which  Wellhausen  de- 
clares to  be  of  Persian  origin,  Friedr.  Delitzsch 
(Wo  lag  das  Paradies?  p.  265)  has  already  found  a 
parallel  to  it  in  Barnaki,  a territory  near  Tel  Assur 
on  the  Middle  Euphrates,  mentioned  in  one  of  Esar- 
haddon’s  inscriptions — a name  which  might  also  be 
transcribed  as  Parnak.1 

Now,  if  all  these  names  had  been  made  to  pattern, 
either  during  or  after  the  Captivity,2  we  should 
naturally  expect  to  find  them  prominently  repre- 
sented among  the  numerous  personal  names  which 
occur  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  This,  however,  is  by 
no  means  the  case.  Even  such  characteristic  names 
as  those  compounded  with  'Amm,  Tsur,  and  Shad- 
dai,  are  never  found  in  post -exilic  times;  names 
compounded  with  El,  on  the  other  hand,  appear  in 
a curious  medley  with  those  compounded  with  Yah, 
these  latter  being,  however,  by  far  the  more  numer- 
ous of  the  two.  And  though,  it  is  true,  that  names 
like  Be-zal-el  = under  the  protection  of  God,  Ex. 
xxxi.  2, 3 recur  under  Ezra,  this  was  of  course  due  to 
the  mania  for  imitating  Mosaic  institutions,  which, 
after  reaching  the  last  stage  of  decay,  had  just  then 
been  revived  in  an  unparalleled  manner. 

1 As  a matter  of  fact,  this  word,  like  many  other  so-called  Quadrilit- 
erals,  may  possibly  have  been  formed  from  a pure  Arabic  Pannaku  (cf. 
Arab,  fanaka ),  by  the  insertion  of  an  r (dissimilation)  ; many  analogous 
instances  are  to  be  found  both  in  Arabic  and  Aramaic. 

2 It  would  be  interesting  to  know  something  more  of  this  “pattern,” 
which  was  available  in  post-exilic  times. 

3 Cf.  Zal-munna'  and  Zal-pachad,  LXX.  Sal-paad,  and  the  Ancient 
Babylonian  Tsili-Istar  and  similar  names,  p.  71. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  3OI 

It  is  quite  certain,  therefore,  that  the  names  con- 
tained in  these  lists  in  the  Book  of  Numbers  cannot 
be  rightly  assigned  to  any  other  period  than  that  of 
Moses.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  presence  of  some 
names  (especially  in  Numbers  xiii.)  which  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  text  is  corrupt  in  places,  these  lists 
have  been  shown,  by  the  external  evidence  of  the 
tradition  preserved  in  inscriptions  of  the  second  mil- 
lennium B.c.  {vide  supra,  Chapter  III.),  to  be  genuine 
and  trustworthy  documents,1  before  which  historical 
theories  built  up  by  modern  critics  of  the  Penta- 
teuch must  “ collapse  irretrievably.” 

1 The  names  in  1st  Chronicles  (to  say  nothing  of  those  in  Joshua)  con- 
tain much  ancient  material,  a fact  sufficiently  proved  by  such  names  as 
Yaphlet,  Yamlek,  Yish'i  and  many  others.  On  some  future  occasion  I 
hope  to  deal  more  fully  with  this  point. 


302 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


CHAPTER  X 

FROM  JOSHUA  TO  DAVID 
RETROSPECT  AND  CONCLUSION 

Even  if  we  possessed  no  other  details  in  regard  to 
the  history  of  Israel  from  the  conquest  of  the  region 
west  of  the  Jordan  (i.e.  from  the  time  of  Joshua) 
down  to  the  reign  of  David  or  Solomon,  beyond  the 
personal  names  of  the  period  in  question,  and  a sort 
of  skeleton  outline  of  the  various  wars  and  victories, 
written  something  after  this  fashion,  “Gideon  (Ye- 
rub-Ba'al)  defeated  the  Midianites,”  we  should  still 
be  able  by  their  aid  alone  to  secure  the  recognition 
of  one  fact  which  has  a most  important  bearing  on 
the  religious  history  of  the  people.  I refer  to  the 
infiltration  of  Canaanite  elements  into  the  nomen- 
clature of  Mosaic  and  pre-Mosaic  times,  which  up 
to  the  time  of  Joshua  had  been  almost  entirely  free 
from  such  admixture,  being  still  essentially  Arabian 
in  character.  Names  like  Jerub-Ba'al  (son  of  Saul), 
Merib-Ba'al  (son  of  Jonathan),  and  Be'el-yada'  (son 
of  David,  afterwards  changed  into  Eli-yada'),  speak 
for  themselves,  and  prove  that  by  that  date  the 
Israelites  had  proved  unfaithful  to  their  ancient 
traditions,  and  had  allowed  themselves  to  be  deeply 
influenced  by  the  religion  of  the  conquered  Canaan- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  303 


ites.1  Even  names  compounded  with  Adoni  = my 
Lord  (cf.  supra , p.  217),  such  as  Adoni-ram,  betray 
this  influence.  The  frequent  recurrence  in  the  Book 
of  Judges  of  passages  in  which  we  are  told  that  the 
Israelites  forsook  Yahveh,  and  followed  after  Ba'ai 
and  Astarte  {e.g.  ii.  1 1 et  seq.),  or  that  they  inter- 
mingled with  the  Canaanites  and  served  the  gods  of 
their  wive-s  or  of  their  sons-in-law  (iii.  6),  harmonise 
in  every  way  with  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from 
a study  of  the  personal  names.  These  names  com- 
pounded with  Ba'ai  clearly  shew  that  these  laments 
over  the  apostasy  of  Israel,  during  the  time  of  the 
Judges,  are  in  no  way  due  to  the  pen  of  a later 
“ Deuteronomistic  ” editor. 

That  this  apostasy  was,  however,  merely  partial 
and  transitory,  and  that  Mosaic  principles  always 
managed  to  get  the  upper  hand  in  the  end,  is  evi- 
dent from  the  steady  increase  in  the  number  of 
names  compounded  with  Jo,  Jeho  (from  Yahveh) 
and  Jah,  such  as  Joash,  Jotham,  Jeho-natan  (Jona- 
than), Abi-jah,  Joab,  Zeruiah,  Shephat-iah,  Adoni- 
Jah,  Uri-jah,  Jeho-shaphat,  Bena-iah,  Jehoiada.  Al- 
though a son  of  David  bore  a name  containing  the 
element  Ba'ai,  viz.  Be'el-iada'— which  was,  however, 
afterwards,  and  probably  during  David’s  life-time, 
altered  to  Eli-iada' — we  find  from  this  period  forward 
no  other  instance  of  a Hebrew  personal  name  con- 


1 To  this  list  may  be  added  the  name  'Ebed-Ba'al  = servant  of  Ba'ai, 
Judges  ix.  26.  In  the  Hebrew  text  the  name  appears  simply  as  'Ebed  ; 
the  LXX.  variant,  Io-Ba'al  = Yahveh  is  Ba'ai,  proves,  however,  that 
this  name  must  originally  have  been  compounded  with  Ba'ai,  and  in  that 
case  must  naturally  have  been  'Ebed-Ba'al. 


304 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


taining  Ba'al — not  even  a single  example  during  the 
time  of  the  Kings  of  Israel — a circumstance  we  may 
well  be  allowed  to  attribute  to  the  permanent  influ 
ence  of  such  men  as  Samuel.  Not  even  a king  like 
Ahab  dared  in  later  times  to  give  to  his  son  an  ap- 
pellation involving  Ba'al.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
manifestly  apparent  from  the  names  of  the  Israelite 
kings,  from  Solomon  onwards,  that  Yahveh  was 
the  prevailing  element  in  all  personal  designations. 
How,  we  may  well  ask,  could  the  Mosaic  Priestly 
Law  come  into  general  usage  at  a period  when, 
owing  to  intercourse  with  the  Canaanites,  and  the 
appropriation  of  their  language,  there  was  such  an 
assumption  of  heathen  ideas  as  to  almost  swamp  the 
pure  worship  of  Yahveh  ? The  Priests  and  Prophets 
who  remained  true  to  their  faith,  must  have  felt  no 
little  satisfaction  at  having  been  able  to  transfer 
faithfully,  by  paraphrase  or  translation,  the  Holy 
traditions  into  the  lately  - cultivated  speech1  and 
newly-adopted  characters  of  Canaan.  In  their  act- 
ual surroundings,  and  amid  the  prevailing  confu- 
sion this  must  have  been  their  first  desirable  object. 
They  must  have  endeavoured,  moreover,  to  secure 
a wider  recognition  of  the  claims  of  Yahveh,  as  op- 
posed to  the  cults  of  Baal  and  Astarte,  in  order  to 
prepare  for  the  introduction  of  His  worship,  which 

1 This  was  the  Old  Testament  Hebrew,  which  although  really  essen- 
tially identical  with  the  ancient  Canaanite  speech,  must  have  taken  over 
much  from  the  earlier  language  (Arabic)  of  the  Israelites  ; see  pp.  274 
and  286.  I have  not  hesitated  to  express  my  belief,  that  the  linguistic 
peculiarities  of  the  Priestly  Code  especially  preserve  evidence  of  ancient 
Arabic  survivals. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  305 


was  already  bound  up  with  the  Mosaic  Code.  In 
this  they  were  successful,  and  Solomon  was  the  man 
who  was  called  upon  to  complete  the  task  which 
they  had  begun.  The  temple  was  there  ready  for 
the  purpose,  but  the  worship  of  Strange  Gods,  in- 
troduced by  foreign  Princesses,  threatened  to  ruin 
everything.  Solomon  died,  and  it  was  left  to  his 
successors  to  fulfil  the  neglected  duty ; but  the  un- 
fortunate political  schism  took  place,  and  with  it  a 
further  departure  from  the  faith.  There  still  re- 
mained, however,  at  Jerusalem  a sacerdotal  body  to 
hand  on  the  legacy  bequeathed  by  Moses,  and  to 
continue  their  work  throughout  the  time  of  the 
Kings,  as  we  may  readily  gather  from  what  is  re- 
lated of  Jehoshaphat,  Hezekiah,  and  Josiah. 

If  we  were  in  possession  of  the  Book  of  the  Wars 
of  the  Lord , or  of  the  Book  of  the  Upright  {Sep her 
ha-jashar,  in  which  we  may  see  an  allusion  to  Je- 
shurun-Israel),  we  should  doubtless  see  many  things 
in  a clearer  light.  Still,  there  is  enough  material  in 
the  personal  names  involving  the  name  of  God,  and 
in  the  continuous  external  testimony  to  the  true  tra- 
dition, furnished  by  inscriptions  to  make  manifest 
for  all  time  the  falsity  of  the  reconstruction  of  history 
associated  with  the  Wellhausen  School.  Think  for 
a moment  of  the  new  horizon  opened  to  us  by  the 
Arabic  names  of  the  Khammu-rabi  dynasty!  Who 
would  have  dared  but  a short  time  ago  to  have 
presumed  that,  as  far  back  as  1700  B.C.,  Ai  or  Ya, 
Shaddai  and  Shemu  (Sum-hu),  were  in  currency  as 
expressions  of  the  religious  life  of  the  early  progen- 
itors of  the  Hebrews,  and  that  such  names  as“  Ya  is 


20 


30 6 THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

Priest”  (Ya-Kaleb,  shortened  into  Kaleb),  “ my  Un- 
cle (or  Father)  is  Shaddai  ” ('Ammi-Shaddai),  “his 
name  is  God  ” (Samuel),  reach  back  into  that  defi- 
nite early  period  reckoned  by  the  disciples  of  Well- 
hausen  as  mythical!  We  have  seen,  from  the  evi- 
dence of  personal  names,  and  of  inscriptions  also, 
that  personalities  such  as  those  of  Abraham  and 
Melchizedek  have  nothing  of  the  nature  of  anachro- 
nisms about  them,  but  rest  upon  traditions  which  had 
been  put  into  writing  long  before  the  time  of  Moses. 
We  have  learned  from  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets 
the  history  of  the  period  prior  to  the  Exodus,  and 
have  been  able  to  follow  the  raiding  expeditions 
into  the  then  semi-Egyptian  Canaan,  undertaken  by 
the  tribe  of  Asher  and  the  Khabiri,  at  a time  con- 
siderably before  Moses.  Lastly,  we  gather  from  the 
South  Arabian  inscriptions  materials  for  completing 
our  knowledge  of  the  Sacerdotal  system  of  the  Mid' 
ianites — a system  which  plays  such  an  important 
part  in  the  Mosaic  history.  And  how  much  further 
material  lies  still  buried  in  the  soil  of  Babylon,  Ara- 
bia, and  Egypt,  with  promise  of  new  surprises  and 
further  confirmation!  Let  us  in  the  meantime,  in 
thankful  acknowledgment  of  the  Providence  of  God, 
rejoice  in  the  treasures  already  brought  to  the  sur- 
face. The  contemporaneous  monuments,  illustrating 
the  religious  and  secular  history  of  Abraham’s  time, 
are  indeed  worth  their  weight  in  gold,  and  deserve, 
in  an  aspect  not  yet  touched  upon  in  the  previous 
chapters,  to  be  still  more  fully  appreciated. 

If  Abraham  were  in  reality,  as  both  the  Bible  and 
the  monotheistic  names  of  his  people  and  contempo- 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  307 


raries  found  in  the  inscriptions  prove,  the  upholder 
of  a concept  of  Deity  which,  though  simple  and 
childlike,  was  at  the  same  time  a profound  recogni- 
tion of  the  Divine  Unity,  then  we  are  put  in  posses- 
sion of  a new  light  on  Primitive  Biblical  History 
(Gen.  i.,  ii.). 

As  the  Israelites  did  not  borrow  their  “ Patriarch 
Legends  ” at  first  hand  from  the  Baal-worshippers 
of  Canaan,  they  did  notin  manner  become  possessed 
of  the  primitive  history  of  mankind.  A people  with 
such  a past  religious  history  as  the  children  of  Israel, 
would  certainly  have  no  need  to  rely  upon  the  sub- 
jugated peoples  of  Palestine  for  accounts  of  the 
Creation  of  the  world,  the  Fall,  the  Deluge,  and  of 
their  early  progenitors ; seemingly  mythological 
traces — the  so-called  anthropomorphisms — in  the  Je- 
hovist  source,  which  from  a linguistic  point  of  view 
shews  much  fewer  evidences  of  an  Arabic  original 
than  the  Priestly  Code,  may  at  most  have  been  ow- 
ing to  Canaanite  influences.1  In  other  respects,  the 
first  eleven  chapters  of  Genesis  show,  as  is  well 
known,  the  closest  relationship  with  the  correspond- 
ing traditions  of  Babylonia — with  this  important  ex- 
ception, that  while  the  latter  is  inter-penetrated  with 
Sumerian  Polytheism,  the  Bible  exhibits  nothing  but 
the  purest  Monotheism — the  anthropomorphism  as- 
cribed to  the  Jehovist  reflecting  only  in  a superficial 

1 It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  the  clearly  distinguishable  Jehovist 
portions  of  Genesis  represent  generally  a recension  of  the  ancient  tradi- 
tional material  made  in  the  time  of  the  Judges.  In  this  case  we  should 
not  be  obliged  to  look  (as  on  p.  287,  where  we  hazarded  the  hypothesis) 
to  the  period  of  the  Kings  for  this  recension. 


308  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

manner,  if  at  all,  anything  of  a polytheistic  concep- 
tion. We  have,  it  is  true,  the  usual  explanations  of- 
fered us,  either  that  the  Babylonian  traditions  were 
introduced  from  Assyria  in  the  time  of  King  Ahaz 
— an  utterly  untenable  hypothesis  — or,  what  has 
more  plausibility  about  it,  the  theory  that  these  tra- 
ditions were  brought  into  Canaan  in  the  Tel  el- 
Amarna  epoch,  and  became  known  to  the  Israelites 
in  later  times.  On  either  hypothesis,  the  Israelites 
must  then  for  the  first  time,  under  the  influence  of 
the  Prophets  of  the  time  of  the  Kings,  have  rejected 
the  polytheistic  element.1 

The  whole  affair  appears  naturally  in  quite  another 
light  once  we  recognize  the  monotheism  of  Abra- 
ham— the  “ Friend  of  God,”  who  emigrated  from  the 
confines  of  Babylonia  into  Palestine.  While  in 
1890,  in  treating  of  the  account  of  Creation  given  in 
Genesis  i.,  I brought  myself  under  the  displeasure 
of  Wellhausen  by  speaking  “ of  the  ingenuity  of  the 
last  recension  as  being  equivalent  to  a Revela- 
tion,”2 I now  no  longer  hesitate  to  say  that  the 
Monotheistic  concept  of  the  Biblical  text,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  “ Priestly  Code,”3  must,  compared  with 
the  Babylonian  polytheistic  version,  be  regarded  as 

1 Cf.  H.  Gunkel’s  Schopfung  und  Chaos  in  Urzeit  und  Endzeit , mit 
Beitragen  von  H.  Zimmer n , Gottingen , 1895,  in  which  important  book 
the  second  hypothesis  is  put  forward. 

2 Inschriftliche  G lessen  und  Exkurse  zur  Genesis  und  den  Propheten, 
II.  (Neue  Kirchliche  Zeitschrift,  vol.  I.  pp.  393-— 412)  p.  407. 

3 Or,  perhaps  better,  the  Elohist  portions.  For  the  narrative  portion, 
and  especially  in  Genesis,  which  modern  critics  ascribe  to  the  “ Priestly 
Codex,”  belongs  to  material  of  the  original  Elohist,  the  Source  E of 
Wellhausen,  and  the  B of  Dillmann. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  309 


the  original.  Gunkel’s  remark,  on  p.  149  of  the  book 
referred  to  in  note  1 of  the  preceding  page,  that  it 
was  the  “ dilettanti ” who  “gave  themselves  up  to 
visions  in  regard  to  the  religious  conditions  of  that 
primitive  period  when  Abraham  dwelt  in  Ur-Kas- 
dim”  is  in  this  respect  characteristic.  Twenty 
pages  further  on  he  himself  even  dares  to  face  the 
ticklish  question  whether  we  should  not  “ go  back 
to  a still  more  ancient  period,  and  connect  with 
Abraham  the  introduction  of  the  Babylonian  Crea- 
tion myth  among  the  Hebrews  ” (p.  167).  He  comes 
to  the  conclusion,  that  “ even  if  there  were  no  reason 
to  regard  the  tradition  itself  as  unhistorical  (that  is, 
that  Abraham  was  an  emigrant  from  Babylonia),  it 
would  not  apparently  be  advisable  to  leave  the  sure 
footing  of  history  and  transfer  ourselves  into  a dis- 
tant period  of  which  Hebrew  tradition  had  at  most' 
given  only  a few  scattered  details.”  We  have  seen, 
however,  in  the  present  volume,  how  near  that  “ dis- 
tant period  ” has  been  brought  to  us  by  the  Ancient 
Babylonian  contract  tablets,  what  an  important  in- 
fluence the  section  of  the  West  Semites  to  which 
Abraham  belonged  had  already  at  this  time  managed 
to  assert  in  Babylonia,  and  how  trustworthy  and 
true  Hebrew  tradition,  dealing  with  pre  - Mosaic 
times,  had  shown  itself  to  be.  Gunkel’s  book,  there- 
fore, is  in  many  parts— notwithstanding  the  author’s 
contrary  intention— only  a further  confirmation  of 
the  position  which  I have  taken  up  in  regard  to  the 
Wellhausen  hypothesis. 

Among  important  things  which  the  Hebrews 
brought  from  Babylonia,  may  also  be  reckoned  a 


3io 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


copious  borrowing  of  the  poetic  art  in  its  formal 
aspect.  Zimmern  in  1893,  following  a hint  of  Gun- 
kel’s,  had  already  made  the  important  discovery 
that  the  Babylonian  metres  consisted  of  a regular 
arrangement  of  accented  syllables,  which  by  means 
of  the  caesura  placed  at  the  end  of  every  half-verse,1 
were  made  up  frequently  into  distichs,  tristichs,  or 
tetrastichs.  Gunkel  makes,  in  the  work  referred  to, 
an  application  of  this  law,  with  the  happiest  results, 
to  ancient  Hebrew  Poetry,  of  which  he  gives  many 
translated  examples.  I append  an  example,  which 
illustrates  at  one  and  the  same  time  this  metrical 
form,  and  the  well-known  parallelism  of  members 
( Parallelism  us  Mernbroru  m). 

Righteousness  and  judgment  are  | the  foundation  of  Thy  Throne, 
Mercy  and  truth  | go  before  Thy  face. 

(Ps.  Ixxxix.  14.) 

The  following  is  another  instance,  which  Franz 
Delitzsch,  at  least  in  his  German  version,  either 
accidentally  or  intentionally,  cast  into  its  proper 
rhythm. 

He  that  dwells  in  the  ward  of  the  Highest 

And  abides  in  the  shade  of  the  Mightiest.  (Ps.  xci.  1.) 

With  which  we  may  compare  the  lines  from  the 
Babylonian  Creation  Epos : 


1 H . Zimmern  Ein  vorlaujiges  Wort  iiber  babylonische  Metrik , Zeit- 
schr.  f.  Assyriologie,  vol.  viii.  pp.  121 — 124.  Cf.  the  later  treatise, 
Weiteres  zur  babylonischen  Metrik,  ibid.  vol.  x.  1895,  pp.  I — 24.  Cf. 
also  p.  183,  where  the  metre  of  the  Kudurlugmal  fragment  is  dealt  with. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  3 1 1 


Naught  shall  be  reformed  | what  ever  I furnish, 

Ne’er  be  taken  back  | the  word  of  my  mouth! 

or  (from  the  same) : 

After  he  thus  his  opposer  | subdued  and  thus  vanquished, 

The  haughty  contradictor,  | to  shame  thus  had  brought  him.1 

This  metrical  arrangement  in  strophes  had,  it  is 
true,  been  imported  from  Babylon  into  Canaan  dur- 
ing the  long  period  when  the  latter  country  was 
under  Babylonian  rule  and  influenced  by  Baby- 
onian  culture.  We  find  traces  of  this  even  in  the 
Tel  el-Amarna  tablets.  That  the  Israelites  did  not 
borrow  it  in  the  first  instance  from  the  Canaanites, 
but  from  Abraham’s  time  forward  (when  they  were 
still  Arabs)  obtained  it  like  many  other  things  di- 
rect from  Babylonia,  is  clear  from  the  following 
circumstance.  We  find  in  the  earliest  forms  of 
Arab  poetry,  namely  the  so-called  Ragaz  (Rejez) 
Poems,  a marked  instance  of  imitation  of  the  Baby- 
lonian strophe.2  The  Ragaz  forms  the  connecting 
link  between  the  latter  and  the  various  Arab  metres, 
such  as  Kamil,  Wafir,  etc.,  which  are  distinguished 
by  a regular  alternation  of  long  and  short  syllables. 
That  the  connection  here  mentioned  goes  back  to 
Abrahamic  times  is  manifest  from  the  expressions 
hagazva,  saga  a (Arabic,  sagu  [sej']  = rhymed  prose  ; 
Babylonian,  shegA  ~ song  of  mourning),  which  were 

1 Cf.  also  the  citation  on  p.  63  from  Ishtar’s  Descent  into  Hell. 

2 I have  called  attention  in  my  Assyriological  Notes,  § 16,  Proceed- 
ings Bibl.  Arch.  Soc.  Jan.  1896  (where  I have  given  an  example),  to 
the  fact  that  rhyme  is  here  occasionally  employed.  It  is  always  used  in 
the  Arabic  Ragaz  verse. 


312 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


employed  both  in  Hebrew  and  Arabic  when  it  was 
necessary  to  infuse  a stirring  ebment  into  poetical 
and  prophetical  pieces.1 

To  return  to  early  Hebrew  history  after  this  di- 
gression into  the  domain  of  metre,  it  would  be  well 
worth  the  trouble  to  deal — from  the  new  standpoint 
furnished  by  the  researches  and  results  of  the  pres- 
ent work — more  fully  with  the  entire  material  of  the 
first  eleven  chapters  of  Genesis,  and  to  illustrate  it 
from  Babylonian  parallels.  There  would  in  such  a 
case  be  much  to  say  about  the  lofty  concepts  of 
Deity  held  by  the  Northern  Babylonian  Semites  (cf. 
p.  74,  twelfth  line  from  the  foot),  a concept  which 
makes  itself  clearly  apparent  in  many  examples  of 
the  religious  literature  of  the  Babylonians,  all  inter- 
penetrated as  it  was  by  Sumerian  polytheism.2 

But  I must  defer  for  a future  occasion  the  consid- 

1 A more  artistic  reproduction  of  the  strophe,  such  as  that  pointed  out 
by  D.  H.  Muller  in  several  portions  of  the  Prophets,  Father  Zenner  in 
various  Psalms,  and  F.  Perles  in  certain  other  songs  (e  g.  Deut.  xxxii. ), 
depends  upon  the  introduction  of  a certain  rhetorical  element  into  poe- 
try, of  which,  in  spite  of  D.  H.  Muller’s  assertion  to  the  contrary  ( Die 
Propheten  in  Hirer  urspr.  Form , Vienna,  1896),  no  instance  has  yet 
been  discovered  in  Babylonian  poetry.  It  is  impossible  to  admit  that  the 
observations  of  D.  H.  Muller  and  Zenner  (who  are  dependent  on  each 
other),  in  regard  to  the  form  of  the  strophe  and  to  the  antiphonal  ar- 
rangement, can  be  referred  back  to  early  Semitic  times,  as  D.  H.  Mul- 
ler most  earnestly  insists  on  p.  212  of  the  work  referred  to.  Perhaps  I 
may  be  allowed,  in  face  of  the  ostentatious  manner  in  which  Muller’s 
book  was  introduced  to  the  world,  to  point  out  that  many  kindred  points 
are  hinted  at,  or  expressly  dealt  with,  in  Franz  Delitzsch’s  Commentary 
on  the  Psalms,  especially  his  translations  of  the  same. 

2 Cf.  what  is  said  on  p.  86  of  the  system  of  name-giving  which  ob- 
tained among  the  Babylonian  Semites  ; also  the  deep  piety  of  the  Baby- 
lonian Psalms  of  penitence,  etc. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  3 1 3 

eration  of  this,  as  of  many  other  points,  on  account 
of  the  limits  of  space,  and  will  content  myself  in  con- 
clusion with  drawing  attention  briefly  to  a section 
of  the  primitive  history  which  clearly  indicates  the 
Old  - Chaldasan  (i.e.  according  to  pp.  210  et  seq., 
the  Arabo  - Babylonian)  origin  of  the  Hebrews.  I 
refer  to  the  description  given  in  Genesis  ii.  10 — 14  of 
the  geographical  position  of  Paradise — (v.  8)  “ And 
the  Lord  God  planted  a garden  eastward,  in  Eden, 
(i.e.  in  the  desert,  Babylonian  Edin , and  thus  over 
against  Babylonia,  i.e.  in  Arabia).  . . . (v.  10)  And 
a river  went  out  . . . thence  it  was  parted,  and  be- 
came four  heads,  (v.  11)  The  name  of  the  first  is 
Pishon ; that  is  it  which  compasseth  the  whole  land 
of  Khawilah  (Havilah),  where  there  is  gold.  (v.  12) 
And  the  gold  of  that  land  is  good  ; there  is  the  Be- 
dolakh  [Bdellium,  R.  V.]  and  the  Shohamstone 
[Onyx  or  Beryl  stone,  R.  V.].  (v.  13)  And  the  name 
of  the  second  river  is  Gikhon  [Gihon]  ; the  same  is 
it  that  encompasseth  the  whole  land  of  KAsh.  (v.  14) 
And  the  name  of  the  third  river  is  Khid-dekel  [Hid- 
dekel] ; that  is  it  which  goeth  in  front  of  Ashur 
[R.  V.  Assyria]  ; and  the  fourth  river  is  the  Phrat 
[Euphrates].” 

Now  E.  Glaser  has  already  shown,  in  several  pas- 
sages of  his  Skizze,  that  by  Pishon  and  Gikhon  the 
two  great  central  Arabian  Wadys,  er-Rumma  and 
Dawasir,  were  possibly  meant ; furthermore,  that  by 
Khavila  (Havilah)  the  hinterland  of  Bahrein,  in  an- 
cient times  productive  of  gold  and  precious  stones, 
was  intended  (see  pp.  21 1 and  272  of  the  present 
work,  for  the  relation  of  the  latter  to  the  “ Country 


314 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


of  the  Sea  ” of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions),  and  that 
Kush  is  a known  Biblical  designation  of  Central 
Arabia 1 ; — for  the  corroboration  of  which  I refer 
my  readers  to  my  fuller  treatment  of  the  subject  in 
the  second  volume  of  the  Neue  Kirchlichen  Zeit- 
schrift '}  As  for  the  Khiddekel  [Hiddekel],  which 
had,  on  account  of  a similarity  of  sound,  been  identi- 
fied later  with  the  Tigris  (Idignat,  Diglat,  cf.  Dan.  x. 
4),  it  also  has  a manifest  Arabian  application.  It  is 
only  by  the  Arabic  word  Khcidd , an  expression  for 
Wady,  that  the  first  element  in  this  river- name, 
which  has  hitherto  been  uniformly  misunderstood, 
can  be  explained : it  is  the  “ Wady  of  Diklah  ” 
(Gen.  x.  27),  or  the  Wady  of  Palms.  By  the  latter, 
however,  the  Wady  el-'Arish  is  not  perhaps  intend- 
ed, but  rather,  According  to  the  hydrographical 
deductions  of  Glaser  ( S.kizze  II.  343), 3 the  Wady  Sir- 
han,  or  the  Northern  Arabian  Jof,  which  flows  into 
the  Euphrates,  and  to  the  river-system  of  which  a 
complete  network  of  Wadys,  tb  the  eastward  of  the 
S.  Palestinian  land  of  Ashur,  belong,  thus  corre- 
sponding with  the  Biblical  description  [“  Khadd- 

1 Cf.  for  instance  2 Chron.  xiv.,  and  my  commentary  on  it  [Zerach  of 
Kush,  a Sabaean  prince]  in  the  Acts  of  the  io th  Oriental  Congress 
(Geneva),  3rd  part,  Leiden  1896,  pp.  112  et  seq. 

2 Tnschrift.  Glossen  und  Exkurse,  4th  vol.  of  the  Neue  Kirchliche  Zeit- 
schrift,  pp.  881—902. 

3 Glaser  thus  writes  : “ It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  the  Northern  Jauf 
does  not  carry  its  waters  towards  Jebel  Shammar,  but  in  the  direction  of 
the  Euphrates,  or  probably,  like  the  Wady  er-Rumma,  straight  to  the 
northern  part  of  the  Persian  Gulf  ....  These  Wadys  hardly  ever 
reach  the  sea,  but  their  course  is  recognisable  by  fruitful  spots  here  and 
there,  spots  which  engendered  the  belief  at  all  times  that  these  were 
stages  in  the  course  of  the  Wadi  er-Rumma.” 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  3 I 5 

dekel]  that  is  it  which  goeth  in  front  of  (that  is,  to 
the  eastward  of)  Ashur  [i.e.  E.  of  Edom,  and  not 
Assyria,  as  in  R.  V.]. 

Thus  the  Paradise  of  the  Hebrews,  according  to 
their  early,  if  not  earliest  conception,  lay  between 
the  Euphrates  on  the  east  and  the  land  of  Ashur  on 
the  west  (cf.  p.  238,  where  the  boundaries  of  Gen. 
xxv.  18  are  dealt  with) ; it  was  watered  by  the 
Pishon  (the  Faishan  or  Saihan  of  the  Arabs)  and  the 
Gikhon  (Gei’han)  and  its  most  glorious  portion,  to 
judge  by  the  emphasis  laid  upon  its  products,  was 
Khavila  [Havilah]  or  North-eastern  Arabia.  This 
conception  could  have  been  formed  only  at  a time 
not  very  far  removed  from  that  in  which  the  He- 
brews had  left  their  ancient  father-land — probably 
soon  after  Abraham’s  journey  from  Ur  to  Haran — 
and  in  no  case  so  late  as  a post-Mosaic  period.  Con- 
sequently, we  have  clear  evidence  that  Abraham 
must  have  brought  the  primitive  traditions  with  him, 
and  that  they  were  not  borrowed  for  the  first  time 
from  the  Canaanites  after  the  conquest  of  the  region 
to  the  west  of  the  Jordan. 

With  this  reference  to  the  Paradise,  I bring  my 
investigations  to  a conclusion.  These  investigations 
will  result  in  recovering,  I trust,  for  Biblical  Science 
a territory  which  has  been  regarded  by  many  of  late 
as  a long-lost  Eden,  upon  which  they  had  nothing 
but  regretful  sighs  to  bestow.  I have  not  much 
hope  of  converting  quickly  to  my  views  the  advanced 
critics,  to  whom  the  slightest  attempt  to  invest 
Abraham  and  his  time  with  reality  must  appear  as 


3i  6 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


the  child-like  efforts  of  dilettanti , only  worthy  of  a 
pitying  smile.  My  highest  reward  shall  be  attained, 
however,  if  I can  restore  to  many  j'ounger  theolo- 
gians, and  many  of  the  cultured  laity  too — who  have 
allowed  themselves,  with  some  impatience,  it  is  true, 
and  half-hearted  opposition,  to  be  bewitched  and 
confused  by  the  daring  of  Wellhausen’s  scientific 
demonstrations  — the  ancient  Biblical  Paradise  of 
their  faith,  which  they  had  already  begun  to  mourn 
as  irrevocably  lost. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  3 1 ? 


APPENDIX 

(a)  THE  LAND  OF  YADl'A-AB 

On  p.  82,  the  appellations  Yada'a-abu,  Yada'a-ilu, 
Yada'a-sumhu  and  Sumaida'  (as  to  which  latter  cf.  p. 
98)  are  mentioned,  together  with  a number  of  other 
South  Arabian  personal  names.  With  Yada'a-ilu 
may  be  compared  Yedi'a-el,  a name  which  occurs  in 
the  genealogical  tables  in  the  Books  of  the  Chroni- 
cles. In  regard  to  Yada'a-ab,  however  — a name 
which  we  find  in  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions  ap 
plied  to  several  kings  of  the  Hadramaut  t— Father 
Scheil  has  just  published  (Recueil,  xix.  p.  21)  a very 
interesting  contract-tablet  date,  of  the  time  of  Samsu- 
iluna,  one  of  the  kings  of  the  Khammurabi  dynasty 
{vide  supra,  p.  68),  which  runs  as  follows — 

“ In  the  year  in  which  Samsu-iluna,  the  king,  (in) 
Ya-di-kha-bu  and  Guti,  the  mountain-forests  (> khur - 
shana)  caused  stems  (Ideogr.  ul,  Semitic  elbu ) of  date- 
palms  (mis-uk-a-na)  and  of  gam- trees  to  be  cut  (or 
felled).” 

The  gam-tree,  or  kiddatu ,2  is  the  laurus  Cassia,  so 
that  evidently  both  Yadikhabu  and  Guti  must  have 
been  situated  in  Arabia.  This  latter  name  is  else- 

1Cf.  Mordtmann,  Z.D.G.M.  xxxi.  p.  80,  and  more  recently, 
Glaser,  Abessinier , p.  34  etc. 

3 Pronounced  with  a strong  £-sound  cf.  Hebrew  kidJah. 


318 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


where  applied  to  a region  which  lay  to  the  east  of 
Assyria,  but  it  is  evident  from  the  context  that  it  is 
here  used  of  some  place  either  between  or  on  the 
wooded  plateaux  of  Arabia ; the  name  appears  to  be 
identical  with  the  Arabic  Gawwat,  for  the  Arabian 
geographers  mention  the  fact  that  Yemama  was 
formerly  known  as  Gaww.1 

It  is  quite  clear,  therefore,  both  from  the  Hebrew 
Yedi'a-el  and  from  this  word  Yadikhabu,  that  the 
Arabian  names  in  question  ought  to  be  pronounced 
Yadi'a-ilu  and  Yadi'a-abu  respectively  (instead  of 
Yada'a-ilu  etc.). 


(b)  THE  DIVINE  NAME  TSOr 

• In  regard  to  the  ancient  Hebrew  name  Tsur  (rock), 
which  came  to  be  employed  as  a Divine  appellation 
( vide  p.  297),  special  prominence  being  given  to  it  in 
the  Song  of  Moses  (Deut.  xxxii.  4,  “ The  Rock,  his 
work  is  perfect ; ” v.  3 7,  “ the  Rock  in  which  they 
trusted  ”),  as  well  as  in  other  passages  in  the  Old 
Testament  (e.g.  1 Sam.  ii.  2,  in  the  Song  of  Hannah; 
in  Ps.  xviii.  and  2 Sam.  xxii.  etc.),  and  which  occurs  as 
a place-name  in  Beth-Tsur  (cf.  Beth-el),  near  Hebron, 
I have  just  come  upon  this  in  a South  Arabian  votive 
inscription  from  Harim,  where  it  occurs  in  the  name 


1 Even  in  the  South  Arabian  inscriptions  we  find  the  Gaww  as  the 
name  of  a district  near  Saba  (vide  my  Siidarab.  Chrestomathie,  p.  hi), 
in  which  Dhu-Alam,  a sanctuary  of  Sin  in  the  Hadramaut,  would  seem 
to  have  been  situated.  Probably,  too,  the  king  Tudkhul  (of  Goi,  Gen. 
xiv.  1),  mentioned  above  on  p.  184,  ought  to  be  referred  to  this  terri- 
tory, rather  than  to  Guti?  which  lay  to  the  east  of  Assyria. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  319 


of  a female  slave,  or  temple  hand-maiden,  apparently 
of  Midianite  origin.1 

As  I had  occasion  to  point  out  some  time  ago 
( Aufsatze  and  Abhandl.  p.  29,  note  1),  the  names  in  the 
inscriptions  Hal.  144. — 146,  148,  150,  1 5 1,  153 — 159, 2 
which  occur  after  the  Divine  name  Motab-Natiyan,3 
are  not  attributes  applied  to  this  deity,  but  personal 
names.  Moreover,  when  we  come  to  compare 
them  with  similar  names  — often  very  much  alike 
in  sound  — in  the  Minaean  temple  records,  referred 
to  on  p.  237,  we  find  that  they  are  feminine  per- 
sonal names.  Side  by  side  with  such  names  as 
Abi-hamaya  = my  Father  protests,  Abi-radsawa= 
my  Father  is  well  pleased,  Abi-shapaka=my  Father 
gives  freely,  Abi-shawwara=my  Father  consents  (?), 
Ili-hail  (cf.  the  Hebrew  female  name  Abi-hail),  we 
also  come  across  the  female  name  Tsuri-'addana,4 
which  in  Hebrew  must  have  been  written  Tsuri- 
’addan. 

In  the  Zinjerli  inscriptions,  again,  (N.  Syria,  8th 
century  B.c.,)  we  find  Tsur  in  the  name  of  king 
Bir-tsur  (=  the  god  Bir  is  a Rock)  of  Sam’al,  who  is 
the  adversary  of  a certain  king  Azri-Ya’u  (a  name 
compounded  with  Yahveh)  of  Ya’udi,  a district  of 
N.  Syria.  As  I have  elsewhere  5 pointed  out,  these 

1 Cf.  Num.  xxv.  15,  where  a prince  of  the  Midianites  bears  the  name 
Tsur — an  abbreviation  from  Tsuri-el. 

2 These  inscriptions  date  from  the  time  of  the  Sabaean  priest-kings, 
i.e.  from  the  8th  century  B.c.  at  latest,  or  perhaps  a good  deal  earlier. 

3 Cf.  the  name  of  the  Nabataean  deity,  Mautebah. 

4 Cf.  Hebrew  Yeho-'addan,  2 Kings  xiv.  2,  the  mother  of  king  Amaziah 
(—  my  rock,  i.e.  God,  is  pleased). 

8 Das  graphische  h im  minaischen  ( vide  supra , p.  273,  note  1). 


320 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


inscriptions  come  down  to  us  from  races  who  were 
originally  natives  of  Edom  or  Midian. 

Now,  since  this  name  Tsur  crops  up  in  the  8th 
century  B.C.,  as  a divine  appellation  employed  both 
in  South  Arabia  and  in  Sam’al,  and  in  both  cases  as 
an  importation  from  N.W.  Arabia  (thus  indicating 
a common  source),  it  is  evident  that  its  first  intro- 
duction into  the  land  of  Midian  must  have  taken 
place  at  least  some  centuries  earlier,  a fact  which  is 
of  decisive  importance  in  determining  the  antiquity 
of  Hebrew  names  compounded  with  TsAr  {vide 
supra,  p.  298). 

The  female  names  Abi-radsawa,  Ili-hail  and  Tsuri- 
'addana,  in  the  votive  inscriptions  dating  from  the 
time  of  king  Yadhmur-malik  of  Harim  (according  to 
Glaser,  a contemporary  of  Kariba-ili  Watar,  priest- 
king  of  Saba),  correspond  to  the  female  names  in 
the  Minaean  temple  records;  viz.:  Abi-radsawa  (of 
Bausan),  Abi-hail  (of  Gaza),  and  Abi-'addana  (of 
Gaza),  the  meaning  of  this  last  name  being  “ my 
Father  is  pleased,”  instead  of  “ my  Rock  is  pleased.”1 
The  fact  that  both  the  Hebrew  Yeho -addan,  and  the 
S.  Arab.  Abi -addana  and  Tsuri -addana,  are  female 
names,  is  very  interesting,  and  shows  once  again  the 
very  close  relationship  which  existed  between  the 
ancient  Hebrew  and  South  Arabian  (more  especially 
the  Minaean  or  Midianite)  nomenclature  ; nor  can 

Of  course,  it  is  only  the  names  that  are  identical,  their  owners  being 
different  in  each  case.  These  female  slaves  consecrated  to  the  deity, 
most  of  whom  came  from  Midian — some  of  them,  however,  from  Kataban 
and  Hadramaut  as  well — seem  to  have  performed  the  same  functions  as 
the  lavi'at , or  female  Levites,  mentioned  on  pp.  276  et  seq. 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  321 


it  be  a mere  accident  that  the  same  element  hamaya 
= to  protect,  appears  both  in  the  Hebrew  female 
name  Hami-tal  (written  Khami-tal,  cf.  Abi-tal)  and 
in  the  Minaean  female  name  Abi-hamaya,  or  that  the 
element  hail  is  employed  in  both  the  female  names 
Ili-hail  (Minaean)  and  Abi-hail  (Hebrew). 

In  this  connexion— -and  as  a further  illustration  of 
my  remarks  on  pp.  277  et  seq. — I may  be  allowed  to 
draw  attention  to  another  interesting  votive  inscrip- 
tion (Hal.  681),  the  author  of  which  is  a woman,  and 
which  runs  as  follows — “ Muraggila  (or  Marghla), 
daughter  of  Thauban,  the  Hanakitess,  has  offered 
up  a thank-offering  and  vow  ( tanakhkhayat  wa-  tan - 
adhdhharan,  cf.  Hebrew  minkhah 1 and  neder ) to  the 
lord  (bdal)  of  the  house  of  her  god,  Su'aid,  because 
she  had  prayed  to  him  for  forgiveness,2  that  he 
might  again  be  pacified ; then  laid  he  a penance  on 
her,  she,  however,  offered  a sin-offering  (khatta’at, 
Heb.  piel,  e.g.  Lev.  vi.  19)  and  paid  forfeit  (?)  and 
humbled  herself ; may  he  (the  god)  in  mercy  reward 
her  for  it.”  These  and  similar  inscriptions  (cf.  also 
Hal.  147,  149,  and  152  from  Harim),  though  they 
cannot  be  classed  with  the  Ancient  Sabaean,  un- 
doubtedly belong  to  the  era  before  Christ,  at  a 
period  when  the  Jewish  influences  which  afterwards 
(from  about  300  A.D.  onwards)  came  into  operation 

1 In  this  case  minhah  = bloodless  sacrifice,  and  min  hah  = gift,  must 
be  etymologically  distinct. 

8 Similar  bronze  tablets  from  Harim  contain,  in  place  of  this  expression, 
the  words  “because  she,  on  the  third  day  of  the  festival  (cf.  Ex.  xix.  15) 
and  moreover  during  the  time  of  her  impurity,  had  come  near  unto  a 
man,”  (Gl.  1054,  Vienna  Museum),  or  “because  she  had  transgressed 
(ha-khata' at)  in  the  sanctuary”  (Hal.  682). 


21 


322 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


in  South  Arabic  cannot  have  yet  been  in  operation ; 
this  is  sufficiently  proved  by  the  references  found  in 
them  to  heathen  deities,  such  as  Dhu-Samway,  Hal- 
fan  (god  of  oaths),  and  Athtar.  The  ritual  term 
kliat' at  — sin-offering,  must,  therefore,  have  been  in- 
digenous to  South  Arabia  from  the  time  of  the  an- 
cient Minaeans. 


( C ) THE  LAND  OF  EBER 

An  article  by  Eduard  Glaser  (dated  March  13, 
1897),  dealing  with  the  antiquity  of  the  Minaean  in- 
scriptions, which  has  just  appeared  in  Berlin,  in  the 
Mittheilungen  der  vorderasiatischen  Gesellschaft,  may 
be  usefully  compared  with  what  I have  said  on  pp. 
251 — 259.  Glaser,  who  looked  through  the  proof- 
sheets  of  the  present  volume,  and  whom  I have  to 
thank  for  his  kindness  in  allowing  me  to  see  the  ar- 
ticle in  question  before  it  was  printed,  suggests  an 
extremely  probable  explanation  of  the  parallel  refer- 
ences (dealt  with  on  p.  251)  in  regard  to 
Egypt,  Gaza  and  A’shur, 

Egypt,  A’shur  and  Ibr  naharan, 

which,  in  my  opinion,  throws  for  the  first  time  a full 
light  on  the  original  position  of  the  Land  of  Eber. 
Glaser’s  conclusions  are  briefly  as  follows — 

(a)  The  sequence  in  question  is  a purely  geo- 
graphical one,  viz.  first  Egypt,  then  Gaza,  then  the 
territory  of  A’shur  lying  further  to  the  south-east  of 
Gaza,  and  lastly  lbr  naharan.  Gaza  is  not  specially 
mentioned  in  the  second  enumeration,  and  ought 
probably  to  be  taken  as  forming  part  of  Ashur,  but 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  323 

in  any  case  it  is  certainly  not  identical  with  Ibr  na- 
haran,  which  must  rather  be  looked  for  somewhere 
beyond  Gaza  and  Ashur;  to  the  Minaeans  it  meant 
either  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan,1  or  the  terri- 
tory situated  to  the  northward  of  Ashur  (i.e.  Pales- 
tine proper  and  Syria),  or  even  both  of  these  to- 
gether. 

(b)  A close  examination  will  show  that  the  expres- 
sion Eber  ha-nahar,  in  the  Old  Testament,  is  nowhere 
used  of  Mesopotamia,  but  always  of  the  western 
bank  of  the  Euphrates.2  Even  in  2 Sam.  x.  16,  it 
is  much  more  probable  that  the  region  referred  to 
is  that  of  Aleppo  and  Mambidji,  rather  than,  as 
has  hitherto  been  assumed,  Haran. 

(c)  The  name  originated  in  Babylonia,  not  in  Pales- 
tine, but  (as  I also  assumed)  at  an  early  period  of 
Babylonian  history.  The  Canaanites  named  the  in- 
habitants of  the  land  of  Eber  (which  latter  region 
must  have  included  Ur,  Borsippa,  the  Shuhite  coun- 
try—in  short,  the  whole  of  the  territory  on  the  west- 
ern bank  of  the  Lower  and  Middle  Euphrates),  Ibri 
(or  Hebrews),  because  they  came  from  this  region. 
The  geographical  term  Ebir  nari  (Eber  ha-nahar, 
Ibr  naharan)  must  have  travelled  westward  with  the 
Hebrews  (Abraham)  and  the  races  allied  to  them 
(mentioned  in  the  Bible  as  descendants  of  Abraham). 
A parallel  case  is  that  of  the  term  Meshriki  (=  na- 
tive of  the  east),  which  was  originally  applied  to  the 


1 In  this  connexion,  I may  point  out  that  the  Minaeans  undoubtedly 
had  relations  with  Ammon,  Moab,  and  Dedan  (cf.  supra , p.  271  et  seq.). 

2 On  p.  254,  note  I,  I have  advanced  a contrary  proposition  j following 
in  this  all  who  had  previously  attempted  to  explain  the  name. 


324 


THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 


inhabitants  of  Eastern  Yemen,  by  the  Western  Ye- 
menites, but  which  came  in  time  to  be  used  of  the 
former  even  by  the  Arabs  inhabiting  the  regions 
still  further  eastward.  The  fact  that  the  Biblical 
genealogy  personifies  the  land  of  Eber  as  one  of  the 
forefathers  of  Abraham,  can  only  be  explained  on 
the  assumption  that  Ibri  (=  inhabitant  of  the  land 
of  Eber)  was  a designation  applied  to  Abraham  by 
his  contemporaries ; in  any  case,  however,  the  term 
Ebir  nari  must  have  been  applied  to  the  western  bank 
of  the  Euphrates  long  before  the  time  of  Abraham. 

In  view  of  these  conclusions  of  Glaser’s,  it  will 
first  of  all  be  necessary  to  modify  what  is  said  on  pp. 
251  et  seq.y  in  reference  to  the  passage  in  1 Kings  iv. 
24.  No  importance  need  now  be  attached  to  the 
glosses  “from  Raphi  to  Gaza”  and  “from  Takhpis 
to  Gaza,”  while  in  the  Massoretic  text  the  gloss 
“from  Tiphsah  to  Gaza,”  even  though  it  may  be  a 
later  interpolation,  seems  to  represent  the  view  en- 
tertained as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Solomon.  Simi- 
larly the  Ba'al-Tsapuna  (pp.  253  et  seq.)  of  the  inscrip- 
tion of  Assur-bel-kala  refers  rather  to  the  Ba'al  of 
Lebanon. 

Moreover,  on  p.  255,  Mesopotamia,  as  the  second, 
if  merely  temporary,  home  of  Abraham,  must  be  en- 
tirely abandoned.  Ebir  nari  was  rather  originally 
the  region  between  Borsippa  and  Ur,  including  the 
adjoining  “ Country  of  the  Sea  ” to  the  southward, 
and  was  therefore  at  once  the  original  home  of 
Abraham  and  of  all  the  Western  Semitic  tribes 
whose  descent  is  traced  from  him  in  Genesis.  This 
is  very  clearly  indicated  in  Josh.  xxiv.  2,  where  we 


AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE  MONUMENTS  325 


read  : “Your  fathers  dwelt  of  old  in  Eber  ha-nahar, 
even  Terah,  the  father  of  Abraham  and  the  father 
of  Nahor,  and  they  served  other  gods.  (3)  And  I 
took  your  father  Abraham  from  Eber  ha-nahar  and 
led  him  throughout  all  the  land  of  Canaan.”  This 
passage  furnishes  an  exact  parallel  to  Gen.  xi.  31  (gen- 
erally assigned  to  the  Priestly  Code)  : “ And  Terah 
took  Abraham  his  son,  etc.,  and  they  went  forth  with 
them  from  Ur  Kasdim  to  go  into  the  land  of  Canaan  ; 
and  they  came  into  Haran  and  dwelt  there.”  In  the 
first  of  these  two  passages,  Haran  in  Mesopotamia 
is  not  mentioned  at  all,  even  as  a temporary  halting- 
place  on  the  journey  from  Ur  to  Canaan,  while  in  the 
second  it  is  only  added  at  the  end  of  the  sentence. 
The  parallel  expressions  are,  “ from  Eber  ha-nahar  to 
Canaan,”  and  “from  Ur  to  Canaan.”  In  Josh.  xxiv. 
2,  therefore,  the  term  Eber  ha-nahar  cannot  be  in- 
tended for  Haran  in  Mesopotamia,  since  even  accord- 
ing to  Gen.  xv.  7 (Jehovist),  Ur  Kasdim  was  the 
earliest  home  of  Abraham  ; cf.  moreover,  the  further 
evidence  in  favour  of  Ur  afforded  by  Arpakeshad  (Ur- 
pakeshad  = Ur  Kasdim),  and  the  collateral  fact  that 
in  the  Hebrew  genealogy  (Gen.  xi.  14,  and  cf.  x.  24 
et  seq.)  the  name  of  Eber  occurs  between  Arpakeshad 
and  Terah.  There  can  no  longer  be  the  slightest 
doubt,  therefore,  that  Eber  ha-nahar  (shortened  in- 
to Eber)  was  originally  merely  a synonym  for  Ur 
Kasdim;  in  the  time  of  Assur-bel-kala  (ca.  1100  B.c.) 
Ebir  nari  was  already  used  as  a name  for  Palestine, 

1 In  regard  to  the  text  K.  3500,  published  for  the  first  time  in  its  en- 
tirety on  pp.  194  et  seq.  supra , I may  say  that  my  attention  was  first 
drawn  to  it  by  a brief  reference  in  Winckler’s  Geschichte  Israel's , p.  223, 


326  THE  ANCIENT  HEBREW  TRADITION 

and  finally,  in  the  time  of  the  Captivity,  for  the 
whole  region  between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Medi- 
terranean, then  more  particularly  of  Palestine.  The 
changes  undergone  by  this  term,  which  first  origi- 
nated in  Babylonia  (not  in  Palestine  as  is  wrongly  as- 
sumed on  p.  255)  at  a very  early  period  of  Babylo- 
nian history,  is  intimately  bound  up  with  the  migra- 
tion of  the  Hebrews  from  Ur  into  Canaan. 

These  researches  of  Glaser’s,  outlined  above,  leave 
the  arguments  I have  advanced  on  pp.  235 — 250,  in 
regard  to  the  position  of  the  land  of  Ashurin  South- 
ern Palestine,  and  the  close  connexion  between  the 
parallel  expressions,  “ Ashur  and  Eber,”  in  Balaam’s 
prophecy,  and  “ A’shur  and  Ibr  naharan  ” in  the 
Minaean  inscription,  Gl.  1155,  entirely  unaffected. 


note  1,  where  Baal-za-bu  [.  . .]  alone  is  in  question  as  one  of  the  gods  of 
ebir  nari , a name  which  Winckler  had  already  restored  as  Baal-tsa-pu- 
[na].  Prior  to  this,  Bezold  in  his  Catalogue  K.  3500,  had  published  in 
the  cuneiform  script,  but  without  any  transcription  or  translation,  the 
passages,  “ the  gods  of  Ebir  nari,  may  they  curse  you  with  an  irrevocable 
curse,  Baal-sa-me-me,  Baal-ma-la-gi-i,  Baal-za-bu-bi-i,”  and  “ Astartu  in 
the  mighty  battle  the  Bow.”  . . . Neither  Pezold  nor  Winckler,  how- 
ever, made  any  attempt  to  identify  the  name  of  the  king  or  the  date  at 
which  the  inscription  was  composed  ; Bezold  simply  calls  it  “Prayer  (?) 
of  Assyrian  king  (?)  for  the  destruction  of  his  enemies  ; mention  is  made 
of  various  gods  of  foreign  countries,”  the  two  passages  cited  above  then 
follow  as  an  indication  of  the  tenour  of  the  inscription. 

In  conclusion,  I must  again  lay  emphasis  on  the  fact'that  in  my  Auf- 
satze  und  Abhandlungen , p.  7,  note  8 (cf.  also  p.  123,  Ibru  naharan  in 
^ the  translati  n of  the  Hebrew  Inscription),  I had  already,  owing  to  an 
erroneous  geographical  conception,  identified  eber  ha-nahar  with  ibr 
naharan , but  that  Winckler  (in  the  note  quoted  above  from  his  book) 
was  the  first  to  identify  ebir  nari  with  eber  ha-nahar , though  on  the 
other  hand  he  has,  as  I think  quite  wrongly,  up  to  the  present,  denied 
that  either  of  them  are  identical  with  the  Minaean  ibr  naharan. 


INDEX 


Aaron,  281,  283,  293 

-ab,  84,  298,  303 

Abatia,  hi 

Abd-ashirti,  155,  218 

Abd-ashrati,  218 

Abd-ashtarti,  218 

Abd-el,  105 

Abdi-milkut,  217 

Abd-kheres,  231 

Abd-khiba,  154  ff,  228,  229,  231 

Abd-milki,  217 

Abd-tirshi,  231 

Abi-  (in  S.  Arab,  names),  84 

-abi,  97 

Abi-'addana,  320 
Abi-ali,  84 
Abi-amara,  84 
Abiathar,  283 
Abi-baal,  217,  222 
Abida',  118  236,  270 

Abi-dan,  29S 
Abi-dhamara,  84 
Abi-dhara’a,  84 
Abi-hail,  319 
Abi-hamaya,  319 
Abi j ah,  303 
Abi-kariba,  84 
Abi-milki,  217,  222,  228 
Abi-ner,  217  n. 

Abi-noam,  218  n. 

Abi-radsawa,  319,  320 
Abi-ramu,  72  94  and  n.,  101 

Abi-sami'a,  84 
Abi-shapaka,  84,  319 
Abi-shawwara,  319 
Abi-shu'a,  53,  68  (King),  75,  91, 
92,  107,  207,  n. 

Abi-tal,  321 
Abi-wakula,  84 


Abi-yada',  84,  236  n.,  248,  250, 
270  f. 

Abi-yashukha,  107  n. 

Abi-yathu'a,  53,  84,  207 
Abi-yali'u,  207 
Abi-za’ada,  84 
Abner,  217,  n. 

Abraham  (Abram),  45,  69,  72 
94,  95,  109,  1 16,  125,  132,  139, 
146  ff.,  189,  197,  199,  209,  236, 
242,  269,  275,  293,  306  f.,  308, 

309,  3*5 
Abu-Ai,  143 
Abum-kima-ili,  71 
Abu-rama,  142 
Achaemenides,  23,  31,  179 
Achivi,  261 
achlamah,  204,  281  n. 

Achlami,  203  f. 
adda,  166,  175 
-'addana,  320 
Addi,  Addu,  218,  219 
Addu-dayan,  219 
Addu-mikliir,  218,  219 
'Adhara-ilu,  82,  ill 
Adon,  222,  223 
Adoni,  217,  223,  302 
Adoni-baal,  217 
Adonijah,  223,  302 
Adoni-ram,  302 
Adoni-tsedek,  231 
Aduna,  217 
A-Ea-kalamma,  121 
A^lanitic  Gulf,  148,  270 
Agamis,  Agavis,  168  n. 

Agu,  168  n. 

Agu-kak-rimi,  136,  204,  209 
Ahab,  264  n. , 304 
Aharon,  v.  Aaron 


328 


INDEX 


Ahaz,  308 
Ahi-tub,  284 

Ai  (goddess),  66,  74,  114,  224 
Ai  (god)  1 12,  1 14,  143,  218  n., 
222,  224 

Ai-da'ama,  218  11 . 

Ai-daggama,  218 
Ai-kalabu,  H2ff. 

Ai-kamaru,  113 
Ailat,  19 1,  (v.  also  Elat)  194 
Ai-rammu,  112 
Ai-rishat,  74 
Ajalon,  229 
Akbar,  111 
Akharru,  v.  Amurru 
Akhi-  (Names  with),  83 
Akhi-ezer,  298 
Akhi-hud,  298 
Akhi-kariba,  84 
Akhi-milki,  217,  221  n. 

Akhi-ra',  298 
Akhi-ram,  217 
Akibu,  83,  no,  274 
Akkad,  36  ff.,  148,  185 
Akran,  299  and  71. 

Aku,  73 
Aku-dainu,  73 
Akur-ul-anna,  121 
A'lam,  204 
Alasia  (Cyprus),  245 
Alexander  (the  Great),  1 33 
-'ali,  84 

Al-kheresh,  238 
Allah,  290 

Almaku-hu,  80,  117  and  n. 

Alman,  204 

Amalek,  148,  235,  240,  241,  244 

-amara,  84 

Amariah,  286 

Amarna,  v.  Tel-el-Amarna 

Amartu,  1 7 1 

Amat-Istar,  188 

Amaziah,  319  n. 

Amen-em-hait,  51 
Amenothes,  32,  154,  213 
'ami-da,  81 
Amil-Bel,  61 
Amlatu,  21 1 
Amlilatu,  21 1 


'Amm,  48,  300 
ammatu,  192  ti. 

'Ammi-  (Arab.),  83  (Hebr.),  91 
Ammi-amara,  84 
,,  -anisa,  84 
Ammi-Baal,  217,  222  n. 

,,  -dhara'a,  84 
,,  -el,  90,  298 
,,  -hud,  98,  298 
,,  -kariba,  84 
,,  -nadab,  90,  95  298 

„ -sadugga,  88 
,,  -sami'a,  84,  248 
,,  -satana,  78,  93  and  95 
107  ff.,  130 

,,  -shaddai,  109,  298. 

,,  -shapaka,  84 
,,  -tsaduka,  84,  90,  246,  248 
,,  -yada'a,  84 
„ -yapi'a,  84 
,,  -yathu'a,  84 

„ -zaduga,  68,  75,  89,  92  93 

and  n. 

Ammon,  48,  148,  201,  221  237, 

271 

Ammu-ladin,  91 
Ammu-nira,  217,  222  ?i.  228 
Ammu-rabi,  105,  192 
Ammu-rapaltu,  192 
Amorites,  34  n , 57,  148,  171,  245 
( v . also  Martu). 

Amos,  14  f. 

Amraphel,  43,  93,  124,  147,  192  f. 

Ammi-anshi,  49,  Si 

Amu,  47,  52 

Amukkan,  21 1 

-amur,  141  n. 

Amur-Ashir,  141  n. 

Amur-ila,  67 
Amurri,  34  n .,  57 
Amur-Samas,  141^. 

'An,  257 
Anab,  262 
Ana-pani-ili,  72 
Anat,  218,  219,  222 
An-Baal,  7i«. 

Anbay  (Nebo),  80,  116,  273  n. 
'Aner,  149,  150,  158 
-anisa,  84 


INDEX  329 


An-Karih,  78,  79  and  n. 

Anshan,  37,  170 
Anu,  66,  167,  175 
Anu-bani,  62  n. 

Anubis,  281 
Anunit,  66,  184 
-apika,  84 

Apil-Bel,  121,  181  n. 

Apil-Ea,  121 
Apil-ili-shu,  73 
Apil-Sin,  68,  72  n.,  93,  103 
Apir,  234 
Apiru,  v.  Epri 
Arabia,  34  f. , 40 
Arabia,  East,  234  268 

Arabic,  202,  226,  304  n. 
Arad-Elali,  115 
Arad-Nirgal,  72 
Arad-Ramman,  72 
Arad-Sin,  169 
Aram-Naharaim,  204 
Aramaeans,  201  ff.,  220 
Aramaic,  54  f.,  201,  202 
Araru,  262 

Arba,  v.  Kirjath  Arba 
-Ardat,  232  n. 

Ari,  222 
Ari-el,  222 
Ariocb,  v.  Eri-Aku 
Arish  (Wady  el-),  236,  242,  251 
255  f- 
Arka,  234 
Arman,  205 
Aroer,  262 

Arpakeshad,  210  andn., 256,  292  ff. 
Arrapach,  295  f. 

Arvad,  217,  245 
-asaph,  107  217 

Ashdod,  217,  221 
Asher,  226  ( v . also  Asser) 
Asherah,  218,  221 
•ashir,  142 
Ashir  (god),  141  n. 

Ashir-emuki,  141  n. 

Ashir-tayar,  141  n. 

Ashkelon,  221,  228,  264 
Ashnunnak,  168 
Ashtar-Kamosh,  273 
Ashtaroth,  v.  Astaroth 


Ashteroth-Karnaim,  148,  272,  273 
Ashupi-ilu,  142  n. 

Ashur  (Assyra),  141  144,  237 

A’shur,  247,  249,  250,  322  f. 
Ashur  (in  S.  Palestine),  237,  238, 
243,  244,  252,  260,  263,  and  n.} 

3r3>  3*5 

Ashur- Ai,  143 

Ashur-bani,  141  n.  * 

Ashurim,  236,  238 
Ashur-imid,  141  n. 

Ashur- ishtakal,  141  n. 

Ashur-rabi,  141  n. 

Asser,  226  andn.,  233,  234,  235  f., 
238  n. , 264,  265 
Assur,  v.  Ashur 
Assur-bani-pal,  194 
Assur-bel-kala,  194  andn.,  253 
Assur-dan,  139 
Assur-natsir-pal,  194  n.,  219 
Assyria,  30 
Assyrians,  139  ff. 

Assyriology,  29  f. 

Astar,  222  ( v . Atlitar) 

Astarte,  115  195,  219,  222  f., 

303 

Astarsi  (City  of),  262 
Asurbanipal,  v.  Assurb. 

Atar-ilu,  142 

Athtar,  79  ff.,  116,  247,  322 

Atonement,  Day  of,  280 

Aum,  80 

-awwas,  81 

Ayab,  261 

Ayin,  230 

azala,  278 

Azanum,  in 

-'azar,  in,  293 

Az-azel,  278 

Azi-baal,  217 

azkarah,  277  f. 

Azri-Yau,  319 
-'azza,  81 
Azzan,  299 

Baal,  1 15  217,  218,  222  f., 

223  f.,  286,  302  f. 
an-Baal,  79  n. 
ha-Baal,  296  n . 


330 


INDEX 


pa-Baal,  296  n. 

Baal-khanunu,  2 17 
Baal-maher,  219  n. 

Baaloth,  273  n. 

Baal-ram,  219  n. 

Baal-samemi,  195 
Baal-shaphat,  219 
Baal-tsapuna,  253,  254 
Baal-zabubi,  253 
Baal-zephon,  253  f. 

Ba-Anah,  272  n. 

Ba-Asa,  272  n. 

Babylon  (Babel),  162,  181,  184  f., 
187  ff. 

Babylonia,  30  f.,  268 
Babylonian  Pantheon,  62  ff. 
Bahrein,  21 1,  247  272  f.,  313 

( v . also  “Country  of  the  Sea”) 
Ba'ilat  Tsapuna,  254  n. 

, Baiti-ilani,  194 
Balaam,  v.  Bileam 
j Balah,  248 
Balak,  I93 

-bali,  -balu,  71,  141  n. 

Bamoth,  285 

-bani,  v.  Anu-bani,  Ashurbani,  etc. 
Bani-Sin,  72 
bar,  208  n. 

Barakish,  248  n. 

Bared,  242 
Barnaki,  300 
Barnea  (Kadesh),  148 
Barsip,  35 

Bashan,  148,  240,  243,  272 
Basmat,  269  n. 

Batsish,  234  n. 

Ba’u,  65 

Bausan,  320 

Be-dad,  220  272  n. 

Beel-yada',  302,  303 
Beerot,  228 

Beersheba,  226,  242,  243 
Be-eshterah,  272 
Beirut,  228 

Bel,  58,  62  f.,  65  (=  Ramman) 
108,  144,  167,  175,  181,  181  n.t 
218,  219 

Bela,  162,  193  196  (P.  N.),  152, 
220  n. 


Bel-Ai,  143 

Bel-Harran-shadua,  108 
Beli-ishmeanni,  73 
-bel-kala,  194 
Bel-kapkapu,  140 
Bel-nadin-apli,  130 
Bel-shadua,  108 
Bel-shimia,  128  f. 

Benaiah,  303 
Benjamin,  261  n. 

Be'or,  152 
Berdan,  242  n. 

Berosus,  133,  136 
Beth-Tsur,  318 
Bethel,  194,  202,  295,  318 
Bethuel,  297  n. 

Be-zal-el,  301 
Bi-Athtar,  79,  220  273 

Bikhishi,  261  f. 

Bildad,  156 

Bileam  (Balaam),  26,  91,  152,  220 
n.,  243  ff.,  289 
Bi-mahali-Uzza,  237 
Bi-mehal,  238  n. 

Bin-inima,  261 
Bir-tsur,  319 
Birtu,  206 
Bit-Amukkan,  21 1 
Bit-Khabbatu,  187 
Bit-Saggil,  184  f. 

Bit-Sha’alli,  21 1 
Bit-Yakin,  211  «. 

Bit-Zidda,  v.  Ezidda 
Bodi-el,  203 

Borsippa,  182,  183,  209,  323  f. 

“ Brook  of  Egypt,”  v.  Arish 

Bubastis,  260 

Budi-Baal,  217 

Budi-ilu,  203 

Bukki,  299 

Bulala,  205  n.  - 

Burnaburiash,  59,  123,  133,  136, 

„ x37 

Bur-Ramman,  73 
Bur-Sin,  37 
Byblos,  v.  Gebal 

Caesarea,  140 
Cambyses,  78,  248  n. 


INDEX  331 


Canaan,  264 

Canaanite,  92  f.,  119,  155,  215  f., 
221,  273  f.,  286,  302  ff. 

Caphtor,  205 

Cappadocan  Tablets,  141  ff. 
Carchemish,  203,  245 
Cassia  (Laurus),  317 
-chadd,  314 

Chaldaeans,  210  f.,  259  n. 

Chalup-tree,  35 

Chamranu,  206 

Charilu,  206,  207 

Cheber,  232,  238  n.,  258  n. 

Chedor-la  omer,  v.  Kudur-lagamar 

Chindaru,  206 

Chodollogomor,  147  n. 

Covenant,  Book  of  the,  10,  20 
Cyprus,  245  and  n. 

Cyrus,  248  259  n. 


-da'ama,  218  n. 

Da'am-melek,  218  tt. 

-dad,  298 

Dadi-  (Names  with),  84 
Dadi-kariba,  84 
Dagan-takala,  218 
-dainu,  73 

Damascus,  212,  219,  268 

Damgal-nunna,  65 

-damik,  73  f.,  102  n. 

Damki-ili-shu,  121 

Damku  (god),  67  (P.  N.),  102  n. 

Damunu,  206,  211 

-dan,  139,  298 

Daphne,  252 

Darius,  259  n. 

Darkness  (Land  of),  35  n.,  182, 

183 

Date-palm,  34,  317 
David,  287,  303 
Dawasir,  313 
-dayan,  219 
Debir,  221  n. 

Decalogue,  20,  26 

Dedan  (Tidanu),  34,  236  ff.,  270, 

271 

Dennaba,  220  n. 

Descent  of  Ishtar  into  Hell,  64 


Deuteronomy,  4,  10,  11,  282  ff., 
288  «. 
dhakar,  278 
-dhamara,  84 
-dhara’a,  81,  84 
-dharaha,  81 
Dhar’i-kariba,  84 
Dhimri-  (Names  with),  81 
Dhimri-ali,  84 
,,  -katiba,  84 
,,  -yada'a,  84 
Dhu-Alam,  318  n. 

Dhu-r-Rumma  for  er-Rumma  ( v . 
Rumma) 

Dhu-Samway,  322 
Dinhabah,  220  n. 

Dintir  (Babylon),  187  f. 

Dor,  234 
Dothan,  232  n. 

Dul-mach,  179 
Dunib,  220  n. 

Dun-pa-uddu,  63 

Duplicate  passages  in  the  O.  T., 

19  f. 

Dur-ili,  170,  177,  186 
Dur-macli-ilani,  184  ff. 
duru  (in  personal  names),  186  n. 
Dzapgan,  246 

Ea,  62,  64  f.  ( = Sin),  106,  167 
Ea-gamil,  124 
Ea-ma-la-ilu,  98  n. 

Ebed,  303  n. 

Ebed-Baal,  303  n. 

Eber,  96,  244  ff.,  256  f.,  322  ff. 
Eber  ha-nahar,  251  f.,  254  ff.,  323!. 
Ebiasaph,  107  n. 

Ebir-nari,  195,  254  ff.,  323  ff. 
Ebsha’a,  52 
Ebyatar,  107  n. 

Eden,  313 

Edom,  1 1 2,  148,  152,  201  f.,  225, 
235,  237,  261  f.,  320 
Eglon,  221  n. 

Egypt,  227,  237,  245,  247,  250 
Egyptian,  Loanwords,  291  f. , 295 
ekhnome,  281 

Eki,  105,  192  (Babylon),  187  ff. 
Eki-rapaltu,  105,  192 


332 


INDEX 


Ekron,  240,  253 
El,  223,  297  n. , 302 
Elali,  1 15,  142 
Elali-bani,  115 

Elam,  37  f.,  40,  159,  169,  175, 
181  f.,  185,  207,  234,  292 
Elamite,  P.  N.,  59 
Elani,  142 

Elat,  196  (1 v . also  Ailat) 

El-eazar,  111,  293 
El-Elyon,  v.  Elyon 
Eli-ab,  298 
Eli-dad,  298 

Eli-ezer,  in,  118  «.,  297  «. 
Eli-Shama,  298 
Eli-tsaphan,  299 
Eli-tsur,  298 
Eliyada,  302,  303 
Eliyasaph,  298 
el-Oela,  77,  271,  276 
Ellasar  (Lars-a),  147 
Elmodad,  hi 
Elohist,  9,  308  n. 

El-Pa’ran,  194,  197 
El-Shaddai,  v.  Shaddai 
Elyon,  150  ff.,  154  ff.,  223 
Emim,  148 
Emi-zaduga,  107  n. 

Emu  ( = Ammu),  91,  107  n .,  156 
-emuki,  73,  141  n . 

Emutbal,  v.  Yamutbal 
En-anab,  262 
Enan,  299 
Engedi,  148 
En-mishpat,  148,  255 
Ennam-Ai,  141  n. 

Ennam-Ashir,  141  n. 

Ennam-Sin,  141  n. 

En-nun-dagalla,  105,  180  f.,  183 
Enun,  105 
Ephah,  236 
ephah  (measure),  293 
Eponymous  Rulers,  143,  144 
Epri,  257  f. 

Erecb,  121  n .,  128,  167,  175 
Eri-Aku,  v.  Iri-Aku 
Eri-Aku  (Ariocb,  Ri-Aku),  40  f., 
69,  147,  159,  166,  167  ff.,  184 ff., 
189,  203 


Eridu,  167 

er-Rumma  (Wady),  313,  314  n. 
E-saggil,  v.  Bit-Saggil 
Esarhaddon,  255,  300 
Esau,  201,  261 
Eshcol,  149,  150,  158 
Eshru,  260 

Ethnological  Table,  95 
Ezekiel,  279,  282  ff. 

-ezer,  115,  298 
E-zidda,  182 
Ezra,  14,  23,  279,  300 

Faishan,  315 
fanaka,  30 on. 

Feminine  names,  319,  320 
Fetishism,  28,  290 

Gadanum,  hi 
Gadatas,  24 
Gaddi,  299 
Gaddi-el,  298 
Gamaru,  142 
Gambulu,  206,  21 1 
-gamil,  73,  12 1 
Gamli-el,  298 
gam-tree,  317 
Gamunu,  in 
Gari,  262  f. 

Garia,  142 

Gath,  229  232,  241 

Gaww,  318  and  n. 

Gawwat,  318 

Gaza,  221,  225,  236,  237,  243  f. 

250  ff.,  268,  271,  320 
Gazri,  229,  v.  also  Gezer 
Gebal,  155,  217,  219,  228,  245  n. 
Geihan,  315 
Gelam,  241 
Gemalii,  299 
Gerar,  242  n. 

Ger-Ashtoreth,  219 
Ger-melek,  219 
Gesem,  225  n. 

Geshur,  240  ff. 

Gezer,  220,  221,  229,  231,  24 1 n.t 
264 

ghaliyat,  ghalwa,  277 
Ghanna,  63  and  n. 


INDEX 


333 


Gibeon,  225 
Gibil,  65 

Gibil-gamis,  39,  128 
Gideon, 269 

Gikhon  [GihonJ,  313,  315 
Gilead,  269 
Gillo,  241 
Gimil-Ea,  62 
Gimil-ili,  67 
Gimil-Samas,  62 
Gimil-Sin,  37,  237 
Gimti,  229 

Gimti  (Ginti)-Kirmil,  229,  261 
gin  (Measure),  291  n. 

Gir,  208 
Giri-dadi,  219 

Girra-la-gamil,  105,  1 79  n.  (v.  also 
Urra-la-g) 

Girsu,  208  f. 

Gishban,  205  and  n. 

Gishdubar  (Nimrod),  35,  39,  128 
Gishgalla,  105 

Goi,  147,  184,  204,  208  n.,  318  n. 
Goshen,  125,  214,  225  ff.,  235,  257, 
260 

Gosom,  225 
Gu,  208  n. 

Gubin,  35 

Gudea,  3411,198,  237 
Gula,  63  and  n .,  65,  194 
Gul-ki-shar,  121,  126,  129  f. 
Gumanatu,  ill 
Gurruda,  193 
Gushgin-banda,  65 
Guti,  204,  208  n.,  317,  318  n. 

ha-Baal,  296  n. 

Hadad,  219,  220  and  n. 

Hadar,  262 

Hadramaut,  76,  77,  79,  268,  272, 
317,  318  n.,  320  n. 

Hagar,  242,  269 
-hail,  319 
Halfan,  322 
Ham,  48 

Hama-Atht,  79,  246 
-hamaya,  319 
Hami-tal,  321 
Hammamat,  257 


Ilanakitess,  321 
Hanni-baal,  217 
Hanni-el,  298 

Haran  (Harran),  72,  108,  147, 
202,  204,  209 
Harim,  318,  320,  321 
Hasor,  231 
Hauhum,  221  n. 

Haupi-Atht,  79 
Haupi-ilu,  79 
hawaya,  hawah,  100,  114 
hayah,  100 
Hazezon-Tamar,  148 
Hebrew,  95,  96,  100,  118,  215  f., 
228,  274  f.,  286  «.,  304  n. 
Hebrews,  95,  229  ff.,  256  ff. 
Hebron,  149,  158,  202,  221  n.t 
229  n..  231  f.,  242 
Helal,  1 15 
Helam,  204 
Heroopolis,  257  n. 

Heru-sha,  47 
Hiddekel,  z/.  Khiddekel 
hilal,  1 15 

Hin  (measure),  291 
Hiram,  217 

Hittites,  155,  245  n .,  264  ( v . also 
Khattu  and  Kheta) 

Hoham,  221  n. 

Holiness,  Law  of,  10 
Horam,  221  n .,  23 1 
Horites,  148,  261  f. 

Horus,  281 
Hosea,  11,  16 
-hud  (from  yehud),  298 
Hyksos,  43 

Ibishu,  91,  107  n. 

Ibla,  34 
Ibni-ilu,  62 

Ibr  naharan,  247,  248  ff.,  322  ff. 
Ibri,  230  f.,  256  f.,  323 
Ibshi-na-ilu,  99,  100  n. 

-idinam,  73 
Ichabod,  115 
I-ezer,  115 
Igur-kapkapu,  140 
Ikib-ilu,  142 
-ikisham,  73 


334 


INDEX 


Ikun-ka-ilu,  99 
Ilali,  1 15 
-ilat,  79 
Ui-'amida,  81 
,,-awwas,  81 
,,-'azza,  81 
,,-dhara’a,  81 
,,-dharaha,  81 
,,-emuki,  141  n. 
,,-hail,  319,  320 
,,-ishtikal,  141  n. 
,,-kariba,  81  n. 
,,-ma-amur,  14 1 n. 
,,-ma-nabata,  81 
,,-padaya,  81 
,, -rabbi,  81 
,,-radsawa,  8 1 
,,-rapa’a,  81 
,,-sa'ada,  81 
,,-sami'a,  81 
bara'a,  82 
,,-sharraha,  82 
,,-wahaba,  81 
,,-yada'a,  81 
,,-yapi'a,  81,  248,  250 
, ,-ya^u'a,  249 
,,-za’ada,  8 1 
-illat-su,  73 
Ilsu,  249 
Ilu-abi,  98 
Ilu-amar,  143 
Ilu-ashir,  203 
Ilu-bani,  62,  67,  141 
Uu-damik,  74,  102  n . 
Ilu-ishme-khani,  71 
Ilu-ma,  127 

Ilu-ma-Gishdubba,  128 
Ilu-ma-ilu,  12 1,  127 
Ilu-milki,  142 
Ilu-na,  107 
Ilu-ni,  67 

Ilu-ralbi,  106,  207 
Ilu-shu-abu-shu,  73 
Imgur-Sin,  72 
-imiti,  14 1 n. 

Imperfect  Forms,  59  f. 
-imuki,  v -emuki 
Intense,  270,  271 
Incense,  Altar  of,  277 


Ine*Tutu,  181 
Ingi,  36 

Ingi  (Ki-Ingi),  36 
Ini- Malik,  61 
Ini-Sin,  37 

I-noam,  I-nuam,  218  n , 264 

Ipik-ili-na,  107 

-irigam,  73 

Irikatta,  234 

Irishti-Ai,  72 

Irsu,  249 

-irtsiti,  98  and  n. 

Isaac,  201,  242 
Ishai,  1 15 
Ishbaal,  219 
Ishbak,  236 
Ishbi-Nirgal,  6 1 
Ish-ki-bal,  121,  130 
-ishmeanni,  73 
-ishmi,  73 

Ishmael,  118  270,  297  n. 

Ishmaelites,  201,  269 
Ishmi-dagan.  61,  140  n. 

Ishmi-Sin,  73 
Ishnunna,  168 
-ishtakal,  141 

Ishtar,  63  64,  65,  74,  166,  194 
Ishtar-lamazi,  14 1 n. 

Isimanai,  195  n. 

Isir’il,  258,  264 
ismid,  52  n. 

Israel,  228,  257,  297  n. 
Istar-umma-sha,  74 
I-tagama,  218 
I-takkama,  218 
Ithamar,  115 
ithmid.  52  n. 

Itti-nibi,  121 
Izebel,  115 

♦Jacob,  109,  1 18  n .,  125,  132, 

201  ff. 

Jacob-el,  no  294 
Jebus,  199 
Jehoiada,  303 
Jehonatlian  [Jonathan],  303 
Jehoshaphat,  223,  299,  303 
Jehovah,  ico  n. 

Jehovist,  9,  2 8,  307  and  n. 


* For  other  words  usually  spelt  with  J see  under  Y. 


INDEX 


335 


Jeremiah,  16 
Jericho,  49,  231 
Jeroboam,  91 
Jerub-baal,  302 

Jerusalem,  149,  153,  199  f.,  229, 
230 ; v.  also  Salem 
Jeshurun,  305 
Jethro,  276,  279  f.,  289 
Joab,  303 
Joash,  303 
Job,  261 
Jobaal,  303  n. 

Jof,  314 
Jokhebed,  115 
Jokshan,  236,  270 
Joktan,  96 
Jonah,  144 
Joram,  112 
Jordan,  193,  254 

Jordan,  Region  East  of,  271  f.,  323 
Joseph,  hi  n , 114  11.,  132,  269 
Joshua,  221,  223,  225,  231,  302 
Jotham,  303 

Judah,  242  ( v . also  Yehuda) 

Judge  of  the  dead,  73 
Junbula,  206  n. 

-ka-,  298 
Kabadh,  78 
-kabod,  1 15 
Kabri,  206  (for  Kibri) 
kadesh,  113 

Kadesh  (Barnea),  148,  162,  191, 
225,  243. 

Kain,  242,  243 
Kainan,  256 
-kalabu,  112 
kalabu,  113 
Kaldu,  210  f. 

Kaleb,  299,  306 
Kalu,  196 
kamaru,  112 
Kambyses,  v.  Cambyses 
Kamosh,  273 
Kapasi,  155  n. 

Kardu,  210  f. 

Karduniash  (Babylonia),  187,  210 
-kariba,  81,  84 
Kariba-ilu,  82 


Kariba-ilu  Watar,  78,  320 
Karmel,  226,  229,  241 
Karnaim,  148,  272 
Karnak,  260,  265 
Karnavu,  247,  272 
Kashdim,  210,  247  n. 

Kashdu,  210  f. 

Kashi,  38  f. 

Kassite,  P.  N.,  59,  104 
Kassites,  38,  136  f.,  234,  293 
Katabamans,  48,  76  f .,  272,  229  n. 
-kebed,  1 1 5 

Kedar,  207,  237,  270,  271 
kedeshah,  113 

Kedor-laomer,  v.  Kudurlagamar 
Keft,  155  n. 

Keilah,  229,  232,  260 
Kelakh,  238 
keleb,  113 
Keleb-elim,  114 
Kemuel,  297  n. 

Kenites,  243  f. 

Keshad,  210,  292  ff.,  295 
Ketsiah,  269 
Keturah,  269 
Keturies,  201 
Khabbatu,  187  n.,  230 
Khabirai,  234 

Khabiri,  155,  230 ff.,  235,  236,  264 
Khakhum,  34 
Khali-  (Names  with),  83 
Khali-amara,  84 
“ -ilu,  207 
‘ ‘ -kariba,  84 
“ -wakula,  84 
“ -yada'a,  84 
Khami-tal,  321 

Khammu-rabi,4i,  44,  69,  88,  92, 
95,  103  f.,  Ii8ff.,  144;/.,  164, 
172  ff.,  179,  183,  192  f.,  259 
Khammu-rabi  dynasty,  68  f.  ( v . 

also  Khammu-rabi) 

Khamu-niri,  217  n. 

Khana,  v.  Ghanna 
-khani,  71 
Khani-rabbat,  187 
knanun,  217 
Khanunu,  221  n. 

Khapini,  262 


336 


INDEX 


Khapir,  234 
Khar,  262  n.y  265 
Kharbi-shipak,  234 
Kharshu-ba-naimat,  238 
khatta'at  (Sin-offering),  321 
Khatu,  37 

Khavila  [Havilah],  238,  239,  247 

»•.  3J3,  3*5 

Khavilan,  247 
Khayani,  262 
Khayappa,  236  n. 

Khebron,  v.  Hebron 
Kheta,  245,  264 
Khid-Dekel,  314  f. 

Khini-Anabi,  262 
Khnum-hotpu,  52 
khoshen,  280  ff. 

Khumbaba,  40 
Khusha,  115 
-ki-,  14 1 
Kibri,  207  f. 
kiddah,  317  n. 

Ki-Ingi,  v.  Ingi 

Kilti,  229 

-kima-,  71,  185 

Kimashu,  34,  38,  183 

kimmatu,  106 

Kimta-rapashtu,  88 

Kimtu-kittu,  88 

Kimtu-rapaltu,  105,  183 

Kingi,  v.  Ingi 

Kir,  205  ff.,  208,  21 1 

Kirjath  Arba,  229  «.,  232  f. 

Kirmil,  229 

Kishar,  33,  37,  57 

Kish-ili,  73 

Kittim,  245  n. 

kittu,  71,  88 

Kode,  245 

kohen,  17 

komer,  113 

Kubburu,  ill 

Kudur  - dugmal,  v.  Kudur  - laga  - 
mar 

Kudur-lagamar,  40  f.,  147  f.,  164, 
171  ff.,  178  ff.,  193 
Kudur-mabug,  40  f.,  57,  159,  1 66 
175  177  . 

Kudur-nankhundi,  159 


Kudur-nuggamar,  v.  Kudur-laga- 
mar 

Kudurra,  234 
kummu,  106 
Kurigalzu,  136 
Kush,  39,  314  and  n. 

Kushites,  39  f. 

Kuti,  245 

Labaya,  229,  232  232,  266 

Labdudu,  206 

Lachish,  220,  221,  228,  231 

Ladanum,  269 

-ladin,  91 

Lagamal,  44,  159 

Lagamar,  44,  159,  173 

Lahai  Roi,  207,  242 

-lamazi,  141 

Lamga,  117  n. 

Larsa,  40,  159,  162  n. , 165  f., 
168,  177  f.  ; v.  also  Ellasar 
Lat,  79 

lavi’u,  lavi’at,  276,  320  n. 
Leba’oth,  232  (not  Leba'oth) 
Lebbakh-tree,  35 
leshem,  281,  291 
Letushim,  236 
Le’ummim,  236 
Levi,  233,  266  f.,  277 
Levite  priestesses,  320  n . 

Levites,  277,  282  ff. 

Libnat,  241 
-libshi,  99 
Libyans,  264  f. 

Li’itau,  206 
-ljki,  73 
-litsi,  99 
Lot,  146  f.,  148 
Luehuatu,  206  f. 

Lugal-banda,  65 
Luhai-Atht,  207 
lummu,  106 
Lycians,  265 

-ma-  (in  Arab.  P.  N.),  82 
Ma-'an,  76  f.  ( v . also  Minaeans), 
247,  270,  271 
Madal,  262 
Madga,  193 


INDEX 


337 


Madhai,  247  and  n. 

Ma'di-,  83  tf.,  143 
Ma'di-kariba,  84,  248 
Magan,  34,  76  n.,  271 
-rnagir,  73 
-mahali-,  238 
-maher,  219 
Ma'in,  76  and  n. 

Mair,  194,  196 
Makhdi,  143 
Makhnubi-ilu,  in 
Makhnuzu,  in 
Makrub,  76,  113 
Malagi,  193,  195,  196,  253 
Malgi,  Malgu,  193,  196,  253 
malgu,  193 
Malik  (God),  61 

„ erroneous  reading  for  Ai, 
112  n. 

-Malik,  61,  320 
Malikhu,  206 
maliku,  230 
Malka,  1 93 
Malkiel,  233,  258  n. 

Mamlu-Ea,  12 1 
Mamre,  149,  150,  157 
Manda-tribes,  181 
Mannu-balu-ili,  71 
Mannu-shanin-  Sam  as,  70,  14 1 n. 
Manum-bali-Ashir,  141  n. 

,,  -balu-ili,  141  n. 

,,  ,,  -Tshtar,  141  n. 

,,  ki-Ashur,  15 1 n. 

Ma'on,  76  n.,  225,  271 
Maphlitat,  238 
Mar ‘ash,  37,  212 
marat  irtsiti,  98  n. 

Marduk,  63,  144,  185 
Marduk-Ai,  143 
M vrduk-akhi-irba,  234 
Marduk-shadua,  108 
Marduk-taiar,  141  n. 
margu,  193  (for  murgu) 

Margula,  321 
Mar-irtsiti,  98 
Mar-Istar,  73 
Markhashi,  37 
Mar-Simani,  195  n. 

Martu  (god),  57,  72 


Martu  (West,  Countries  of  the, 
Amorite-land),  34,  57  f., 
166,  170  f.,  194  223,237 

„ -bani-ameli,  70 
Mash,  34,  35,  183 
Mashkhuru,  142 
Massaean,  112 
Matan-Addi,  218 
Matred,  262 
Maitan,  217 
Maftan-Baal,  217,  219 
Mauk,  169  n. 

Mautebah,  319  n. 

Mavuk,  169  n. 

Mazanum,  in 
Mazoy,  250  n. 

Medan,  236,  238 
Media,  248  n. 

Medina,  271 
Mehdeba,  262  274 

Mehetab-el,  262 
Melakh,  196 
Melam-kurkurra,  121 
Melam-matati,  121 
Melchior,  217 

Melchi-zedek,  146,  149  ff.,  190, 
289 

-melek,  218  221 

Melk-kart,  221 
Melukhkha,  34 
Memphis,  254  280 

Mentu,  Menti,  47,  260 
Mephaat,  272 
Merib-Baal,  302 
Merodach,  v.  Marduk 
— baladan,  211  n. 

Mesa,  273  f. 
mesdemet,  52  f. 

Meshriki,  323 

Mesopotamia,  252,  255  f.,  323  ff. 
Metre,  182,  310  f. 

Me-Turnat,  205 
Me-zahab,  262  and  n. 

Midian,  236,  247  n. , 249  270, 

276  £.,  279,  319,  320  n. 
Midianites,  269,  319  n. 

Mi-ka-el,  398 
-mikhir,  219 
Milam-,  v.  Melam 


22 


338 


INDEX 


Milgia,  193,  195 
milk  (King),  217,  221,  230 
-milki,  217 
Milki-asliapa,  217 
Milki-el,  229,  231  f. 

Milki-ramu,  142 
Milki-uri,  217 
Milkom,  221  n. 

Milkura,  217 
-milkut,  217 

Minaean,  76  90,  100  f.,  1 15, 

246  ff.,  268  ff.,  319 
Minephtah,  122,  244,  258t  264  f. 
Minkhah,  321  n. 

Mi-sha-el,  298 
Mish-ki,  182 
Mishpat,  148,  299 
Mishtu,  261  f. 

Mitanni,  155  and  n. 

Mitinti,  221 

Mitsr,  237  ( v . also  Egypt) 
Mi-ur-urra,  166 

Moab,  148,  201,  237,  271,  272  f. 
-modad,  1 1 1 
Monotheism,  74 
Moreh,  171  n. 

Moses,  1 14,  161,  199,  223,  224, 
275  ff.,  291,  305 
Motab,  319 

Muabbit-kissati,  12 1,  126 
-muballit,  73 
Mudadi,  75,  ill 
-mudi,  73 
mukarrib,  76 
-raunna',  300  n. 

Muraggila,  321 
murgu,  193 
Mutabil,  170 
Mut-Addi,  218,  219,  261 
Mutsran,  246,  248,  270,  276 

-na  (suffix),  60,  107  f.,  in 
Nab'al,  79  n. 

-nabata,  81 

Nabataeans,  206  n.t  319  n. 

Nabati,  142,  207 
Nabatu,  206  f. 

Nabi-Sin,  72 
Nabium,  v.  Nabu 


Nabonassar,  133 
Nabonidus,  123,  164 
Nabti-  (names  with),  83,  207 
Nabti-ali,  84 
,,  -kariba,  84 
„ -yapi'a,  84 

Nabu  (Nabium,  Nebo),  40,  63,  80 
103,  181 

Nabu-kima-abi-sharrani,  185 

-nadab,  90 

-nadiba,  84 

-nadin,  129 

nahar,  251,  254 

Naharim,  Naharin,  155,  204,  220  n. 

Nahor,  210 

-na'imat,  238 

nakhal  Mitsrayim,  255 

Nakhshon,  299 

Nakrah,  78  ana  n. 

Name  of  Yahveb,  87 
Names  of  three  elements,  70  f. 
Naram-Sin,  xiii.,  n.  61 
naru,  250 

Nash'i-  (names  with),  83 
Nash'i-kariba,  84 
Nashk,  78 
-natan,  303 
Natan-Addu,  218,  219 
Natanum,  82 
Natiyan,  319 
-natsir,  73 
Natunu,  75,  in 
Nebayoth,  206  n.,  270,  273 
Nebo,  v.  Nabu 
Nebo  (Mt.),  273,  274,  285 
Nebuchadnezzar  I,,  129 

,,  II.,  259  and  n. 

neder,  321 
Negeb,  242,  252 
Nehemiah,  23,  300 
-ner,  217  n. 

Nergal,  v.  Nirgal 
neshem,  281 
Nethan-el,  298 
-ni  (suffix),  60 

Nimrod,  v.  Gishdubar  and  Gibil- 
gamis 

Nina  (goddess),  v.  Ghanna,  Gula 
Nindar,  66,  144 


INDEX 


339 


Nindar-Ai,  143 
Ningal,  64,  116 
Ningirshu,  67 
Nin-gish-zidda,  66 
Nin-lilla,  66 
Nin-mar,  116 
Ninni,  65 
Nin-shagh,  167 
Nippur,  166,  167 
-nira,  v.  Ammu-nira 
Nirgal,  63,  144,  156 
Nirgal-Ai,  143 
Nisaba,  64 

Nisin,  36,  140  n.,  162  167  f. 

-no' am,  218  n. 

-nu  (suffix),  60 
Nuffar  [Niffer],  166  n. 

Nun  (Hebr.),  299 
Nun,  62 
Nunia,  299 
Nun-magh,  166 
-nur,  70 

Nfir  Bel , The,  37  f.,  57 
Nur-ili-shu,  72 
Nur-Ramman,  62,  177  n. 
Nur-Samas,  72 
Nur-Sin,  72 
Nusku,  40,  63,  65 

Oedem,  49 
el-Oela,  77,  271,  276 
Og,  243 
olah,  277 
Ophir,  234  n. 

Opis,  173  n.,  205 
-or,  -uri,  217 
Orthography,  274  f. 

Othniel,  297  n. 

pa  (Arabic),  98  n. 

,,  (Eg.  amde),  293 
pa-Baal,  296  n. 
pa-bil-sag,  63 
Padan,  205 

Padan-Aram,  202,  204  f. 

-padaya,  81 
Pa'ish,  262 

Pakes,  Pakesem,  225  n. 
pakhad  (cf.  Gen.  xxxi.  42),  300  n. 


Paknu,  129  n. 

Pa-la- Samas,  98  n. 

Palti,  298 
Palti-el,  298 
Pan-ki,  205  n. 

Pannaku,  300  n. 

Paradise,  313  ff. 

Pa’ran,  El,  148 
Parnak,  300 
Parsu,  248  n. 

Pasagga,  63 
Pedah-tsur,  298 
Pe'ish,  261 
Pekod,  206  n. 

Peleg,  96 

Pelusium,  252,  253 
Pene,  Baal,  115  n. 

Persia,  248  n. 

Pesakh,  291  f. 
peshet,  pesht,  291 
Pethor,  220  n. 

Phakus,  225  n. 

Philistines,  205,  240,  244,  256 
Phinehas,  284,  291,  294 
Phoenician,  215,  220,  274;  v.  also 
Canaanite 

Phoen.  alphabet,  75,  274,  275  n. 
Phoenicians,  265 
Pidia,  228 
Pikinnu,  129  n. 

Piknanum,  129  n. 

-pilakh,  73 
Pilakh  Ashur,  141  n. 

Pir’am,  22 1 n. 

Pir’i-Ai,  73 
Pir’u,  221  n. 

Pishon,  313,  315 
pishtah,  291 
-pi-shu,  71 
pitu,  291  n. 

Planet-gods,  62  f. 

Potiphar,  291 

Triestly  Code,  9 f.,  14,  16  f.,  26, 
277  3°4  f-,  307,  308  n. 

Psalms  of  Penitence,  312  f.  and  n. 
Pu-Addi,  218 
Pukudu,  206 
Pulasati,  244 
Pungunu-ilu,  129 


INDEX 


340 

Puti-el,  291,  293 
-putram,  73 


Rabbat- Ammon,  187 
Rabbatu,  185,  187 
-rabbi,  81 
Rabbi-Atht,  20 7 n. 

Rabbi-nadiba,  84 
-rabi,  140 
Rabi-Addi,  218 
Rabi'ar,  207  n. 

Rabi-ilu,  207  f. 

-radsawa,  81,  319,  320 
Ragaz  (metre),  311 
Ragmat,  247 
-ram,  217 

Ramman,  57,  62,  65  (=  Bel),  73, 
218 

Ramman-rimeni,  73 
Ramses  (Land  of),  228  n. 

Ramses  II.,  125  and  n.,  228,  231, 
235 

„ III.,  231,  244  f.,  249 

„ IV.,  257 

-rapa’a,  81 

Raphi,  Raphia,  251  n.,  254,  324 

Raphua,  299 

Rapiku,  206 

Reguel,  276 

Rehoboth,  220  n. 

Rephaim,  148 
Resen,  140  n. 

Resheph,  219 
Re'u,  206  n. 

Rhyme,  311  n. 

Ri-Aku,  v.  Eri-Aku 
Rib-Addi,  49,  155,  218,  219  and  n., 
228,  245  n. 

Rida',  247,  248  and  n. 

-rimeni,  73 
Rim- Sin,  169 
-rishat,  74 
Riyam,  250 
-riyam,  84,  IOI 
Rubuti,  229,  232  f. 

Rubu’u,  206 
Rummulutu,  206 
Ru’ua,  206 


-sa'ala,  81 
Sa'ada-Wadd,  79 
Saba,  76,  236,  247,  318  n. 
Sabaean  Deities,  79 

,,  Inscriptions,  76  f. 
Sabaeans,  247  n. 

Sabitu,  35 
Sabu,  35  ».,  38 
Sa'd,  246,  248,  270 
Sa'd-Lat,  79 
Sa'du-ilat,  79 
Sa'du-Wadd,  79 
Sagas,  208,  228 
Saihan,  315 
Saklus,  265 
Salem,  149,  152,  199 
Salmanasar  I.,  203 

,,  II.,  264  n. 

Sam’al,  219,  243  319 

Samas,  64,  74,  144 
Samas-abi,  98 
Samas-abuni,  73 
Samas- Ai,  143 
Samas-bani,  73,  141  n. 
Samas-ilu-ka-ni,  72  n . 

Samas-mudi,  73 
Samas-natsir,  73 
Samas -n  at  sir-apli,  70 
Samas-nur-mate,  70 
Samas-rabi,  141  n. 
Samas-shar-kitti,  71 
Samas-tairu,  73 
Samas-ushur,  v.  Ud-ushur 
-sami'a,  82,  84 
Samsi-Ramman,  140  f. 
Samsu-iluna,  60,  68,  89,  91,  102, 
107,  317 

Samsu-riami,  102 
Samsu-satana,  68,  102,  no  f. 
Samuel,  99,  304,  306  ( v . also 
Sh  emu-el) 

Sapati-baal,  217,  219 
Sapin-mat-nukurti,  12 1,  130 
Sapiya,  211 
Sar,  239  n. 

Saragiti,  206 

Sardinians,  265  {v.  also  Shirdana) 
Sargon,  xiii. , n.  198 
S argon  (of  Assyria),  195  n.,  236  n. 


INDEX 


341 


sata,  satu,  107 
-sata-na,  107  ff. 

Script,  Hebrew,  273  f. 

Sea,  Country  of  the,  128,  129,  18  r, 
183,  211,  272  313 

Sea,  Peoples  of  the,  244  f. , 264 
Sebam,  272 
se'eh,  280  ft. 

Seir,  148,  229  260 

Sela,  239 

Semites  (Divisions  of  the),  5 1 f. 
senhem,  291 
Serug,  207 

Seti  (Sethet,  Suti),  50,  208  f., 
209  n . 

,,  (Pharaoh),  226  235 

Setnekht,  249 
-sha-,  298 

Sha’asu,  208,  230  n. 

Shaddai,  109,  114,  223,  300,  305 

shadu, 108 

-shadua,  108,  142 

Shadu-Ai,  143 

Shadunu,  109 

Shaggan,  205  n. 

Shalim  (god),  67 
-shama',  298 
Sha-Martu,  72,  94  n. 

Shamashatu,  273  n. 

Sha’mat,  247 
Sham-Baal,  219 
Shamsum,  80 
Shamu-Addu,  218 
-shanin,  70,  14 1 n. 

-shapaka,  84,  319 
shaphat,  299  n. 

-shaphat,  219,  223 
Shaphat,  299 
Shapia,  21 1 
Shapi-Bel,  21 1 
-shara’a,  82 
-sharraha,  82 
sharru,  150  n . 

Sharru-Ai,  143 
sharru  dannu,  154  ff. 

Shasu,  208 
Shattrel-Hai,  207  f. 

Sha’ul,  220  n. 

Shaveh,  150  n. 


-shawwara,  319 
Sheba’  (Saba),  236 
Shegu,  31 1 
Shelah,  256 
Shelomi,  299 
Shelumi-el,  298 
Shem,  295 

Shem  ( = Yahvth),  87,  115  n. 
Shem-baal,  115  n. 

Shemida,  94 
Shemu-el,  93,  98,  298 
Shem-zebel,  115  and  n. 
Shephat-iah,  303 
sheti  (Hebr.),  291 
Shibam,  272 
Shikhor,  240  f. 

-shimi,  73 
-shimia,  128 
Shinar,  147 
Shiphtan,  299 
Shipti-Addu,  218,  219 
Shirdana  (Sardinians),  265 
Shiri,  229,  261 
Shuah  (Sukhi),  236 
Shu  Ardat,  232  and  n. 

Shubaru,  208  n. 

Shuhite,  country,  156,  203,  323 
( v . also  Shuah) 

Shum-Addi,  218 
Shumi-abia,  99  n. 

Shum-irtsiti,  98 
Shumma-ilu-la-ilia,  70 
shumu  (son),  98  f. 

Shumu-abi,  68,  97  f.,  129  ( v . also 
Sumu-abi) 

Shumu-libshi,  99 
Shumu-litsi,  99 
shur,  239 

Shur  (Land  of  = Ashur),  238,  239, 
241 

Shur  (Wilderness  of),  235,  240 
Shussha,  1 16 
Shusshi,  12 1 
Shu-Tatna,  232  n. 

Shu-Thelah,  232  n. 

Sichor,  v.  Shikhor 
Siddim,  148,  151,  162 
Sidon,  217,  228 
Simeon,  266 


342 


INDEX 


Simti-shilkhak,  166 
Simurru,  38 

Sin  (moon-god),  62,  64  f.  ( = Ea), 
7h  73i  »l6»  273»  318  n. 

Sin  (Wilderness  of),  273 
Sin-abushu,  73 
Sinai,  273 

Sin-akham-idinam,  71 
Sinatu,  273  n. 

Sin-bani,  62 
Sin-gamil,  73 

Sin-idinam,  73,  172  ff.,  176,  1 77  rt. 
Sin-ikisham,  73 
Sin-illat-su,  73 
Sin-imiti,  14 1 «. 

Sin-imuki,  73 
Sin-iragam,  73 
Sin-kalama-idi,  70 
Sin-liki,  73 
Sin-magir,  73,  131 
Sin-muballit,  68,  73,  93,  103,  1 12, 
167,  177 

Sin-nadin-shumi,  71 
Sin-offering,  321 
Sin-pilakh,  73,  141  n. 

Sin-putram,  73 
Sin-rimene,  73 
Sin-rimenishi,  73 
Sin-shaduni,  109 
Sin-shimi,  73 
Sinuhit,  49  ff. 

Sirgulla,  33  ff. 

Sirham,  314 
Sir’il,  264  n. 

Sisku,  12 1 n. 

Sitriyara,  222  n. 

Snofrui,  47 

Sodom,  146,  148,  149,  156,  157 
sol'am,  291 

Solomon,  251  f , 287,  304 

Stars,  names  of,  297  n.,  298 

Stibium,  52,  269 

Styrax,  269 

Su,  208 

Su'aid,  321 

Subar,  208 

Subartu,  208  n. 

Subsalla,  34 
Sugalia,  142 


Sugir,  208  f. 

Sumaida,  84,  317  ( v . also  Sumida') 
Sumer,  36  ff.,  147,  181 
Sumerian,  166,  307,  312 
Sumerian  Personal  names,  61,  67  f. 
Sumerians,  291,  293  n. 

Sumhu-  (names  with),  84  ff.,  98  f., 
101 

Sumhu-ali,  84 
„ -amara,  84 
,,  -apika,  84 
,,  -kariba,  84 
„ -riam,  84,  101 
,,  -watara,  84 
,,  -yada'a,  84,  98 

„ -yapi’a,  84,  99 

Sumida’a,  99 

Sumu-abi,  75,  93  ( v . also  Shumuabi) 

Sumu-hu,  v.  Sumhu 

Sumu-la-ilu,  68,  91,  93,  98  f. 

Sumu-su-amina,  102 

Suri,  208 

Sutet,  208 

Suti,  50,  208  f.,  228 

Syria,  208,  259 

Tadua,  261 
Tagi,  232  and  n. 

Tahpanhes,  251  «.,  252 

-takala,  218 

•takkama,  218 

-tal,  321 

Ta'lab,  80 

Tamar,  148 

-tamar,  115 

tamid,  17,  277 

Tammuz,  67 

Tamna',  272 

Tana,  49  f. 

Tanit  (goddess  = She  of  Tana  ?), 
1 15  H. 

Tashmit,  64 
-tayar,  73,  141  n. 

Teima,  212 
Telam,  241 

Tel  el-Amarna.  32  f.,  45,  155,  199, 
208,  213  ff.,  260,  308 
Tel  el-Kebir,  239 
Tel  Sifr,  167,  175 


INDEX 


343 


Teman,  237 
Tenu,  v.  Tana 
terumah,  17 
Thapsacus,  251 
Thauban,  321 
-thelah,  232  n. 

Thummim,  281 
Thutmosis,  295 

Tid'al,  147,  184  ; v.  also  Tudkhul 
Tidanum,  34,  237 
Tidnu,  237 

Tiglathpileser  I.,  139,  203 

,,  III.,  212,  219,  236 

«•>  253 
Tigris,  314 
Tihama,  272  n. 

Timna',  272 

Tiphsah,  251  and  #.,  324 
-tirshi,  231 
To'i,  232  n. 
torah,  17  n. 

Totemism,  28 
Tsab-ban,  205 
tsadak,  95  n. 
tsaduk,  tsaduka,  84,  216 
Tsaduku,  83 
tsal,  300 

tsaphan,  298,  299 
Tsaphon-Baal,  299 
Tsebaoth,  103 
Tsel-Baal,  221  n. 

Tsidki-  (names  with),  83 
Tsidki-ilu,  142 
Tsidki- Yahu,  83  n. 

Tsil-Bel,  221  n. 

Tsili-Istar,  141  «.,  300  n. 

Tsinnah,  Tsinnat,  273 
Tsophar  [Zophar],  249  n. 

Tsur  (Name  for  God),  86,  300, 
318  f. 

Tsiui-addan,  319,  321 
Tsuri-addana,  319 
Tsuri-el,  298,  319  n. 

Tsuri-shaddai,  298 
Tubba'i-,  83 
Tubba'i-kariba,  84 
Tudkhul  (Tid'al),  43,  147,  184  f., 
3*8  n. 

Tukulti-Nindar,  194  n. 


Tumilat,  239,  257  n. 
turgudis,  184  and  n. 

Turnat,  205 
Tushur,  234 
Tutu,  18 1 n. 

Tyre,  196  n,t  217,  228,  253 
Tyrrhenians,  265 

Ubulu,  206 
Ud-ban,  205 
Udda-im-tigga,  167 
Udumu,  262  f. 

Ud-ushshuru,  234  n. 

Ur,  36,  56,  71,  147,  162  166  f., 

209  ff. , 237,  292  ff. 

,,  later  kings  of,  66  f.,  104 
209  n. 

Ur-  (names  with),  66  f.,  70 

-uri,  v.  -or 

Uriah,  303 

Urim,  281 

Urra-gamil,  179  n. 

Urra-la-gamil,  179  n. 

Ursu,  34 
Uru-azag,  12 1 n. 

Uruk  (Erech),  121  «.,  128,  167 
Uru-ki  (moon-god),  62,  166 
Uru-ku,  12 1,  126  ff. 

Uru-milki,  217 
Uru-salim,  154,  199  f. 
Ur-ziguruvas,  168  n. 

Ushtanni,  259  n. 

-ushur,  234  n. 

Usir-tasen,  51 
Uzza,  1 16,  238,  278 

Wadd,  79  f.,  220,  276 
Waddada-ilu,  82 
Waga*  (Wagg),  271 
-wahaba,  81 
Wahbu-ili,  82 
-wakula,  84 
Walig,  246 

Wall  of  Egypt,  239  and  n. 
Warawa-ilu,  82 
-watara,  84 
Watar-il,  143 
Water  wheels,  227  n. 

West,  Countries  of  the,  w.Martu 


344 


INDEX 


Western  Semites,  53  f. 

Western  Semitic  Alphabet,  75 
Widadu-il,  82 
Wir’i-  (names  with),  84 
Wir’i-amara,  84 

Ya,  1 12,  144 
Ya’a,  49 
Yabishi,  262 
Ya-bitiri,  218  n. 

Yabni-ilu,  220 
-yada,  99,  236  n.,  302,  303 
-yada'a,  81,  84 
Yada'a-,  v.  Yadi'a- 
Yadhkur-ilu,  82 
Yadhmur-malik,  320 
Yadi'a-abu,  84,  317  f. 

Yadi'a-ilu,  84,  317  f. 
Yadi'a-sumhu,  84,  317 
Yadikhabu,  318 
Yadikhu,  75 

Yah,  1 14,  143,  223  f.,  303 
Yahir,  78 
Yahmi-ilu,  79,  82 
Yahrak,  78 
Yahram-ilu,  82 
Yahu,  223 

Yahveh,  9,  ico,  114,  223  f.,  303  f. 

,,  Tsebaoth,  103 
Ya-kalabu,  112 
Ya-kamaru,  114 
Yakbar-ilu,  III,  207 
Yakhir,  217 
Yakhziru,  ill 
Yakin,  21 1 n. 

Yakubu,  201  n. 

Yamlik,  60,  301  n. 

Yamnat,  247 

Yamutbal,  166,  168,  170,  174  ff. 
Yan'am,  221,  261 
Yankhamu,  221 
Yanuam,  Yanoam,  218  n. 
Yapa-Addu,  218 
Yapa'i,  220 
Yapakhi,  220,  231 
Yapakhi-Addu,  218 
Yaphia,  231 

Yaphlet,  238  n.,  299,  301  n. 
-yapi'a,  81,  84 


Yapi'an,  246,  272  n. 

Yapi'u,  83,  220 
Yapti-Addu,  220 
,,  -Khada,  220 
Ya'qub-ilu,  95,  201  n. 

Yara,  222 

Yarbi-ilu,  60,  106,  no 
Yarkhamu,  hi 
Yarmuth,  221  n. 

Yashap-el,  non.,  294 
Yashub,  no  n. 

Yashup-ilu,  75,  82,  95 

Yashupu,  82,  no 

Yashuya,  262 

Yasma'-ilu,  82 

Yasumuuu,  igc  and  n.,  2C2 

-yathar,  283 

Yathil,  248 

Yathimat,  272 

Yathi'u,  Yathu'u,  83,  248 

Yathrib,  271 

-yathu'a,  84 

Yatu'a,  207 

Ya'zar-ilu,  in 

Yedia-el,  317 

Yeho,  223,  303 

Yeho-addan,  319  n.,  320 

Yehuda,  298 

Yemama,  271,  318 

Yerahmeel,  242,  297  n. 

Yerimot,  261 

Yeshimon,  195  n. , 253 

Yeshimoth,  272 

Yir'i-ah,  83  n. 

Yishai,  115 
Yish'i,  92  n.,  301  n. 

Yishiari,  222 
Yith'i-  (names  with),  83 
Yith'i-amara,  83 
,,  -kariba,  84 
,,  -yapi'a,  84 
Yo,  303 

Yuawwis-ilu,  82 
-za’ada,  8r,  84 

Zabium,  Zabu,  68,  93,  ioi,  102 
Zadok,  284  f. 

-zabab,  262 
Zaidu-ili,  82 


INDEX 


345 


Zakkalu,  234,  244 
Zakunum,  m 
Zal-munna,  301  n. 
Zal-pak-had,  301  n. 
Zanik-pi-shu-Shamas,  71 
Zaphon,  253 
Zapsha,  Zapshali,  37 
Zar,  239  and  n. 

Zar-ki,  262 
Zayyada-ilu,  82 
-zebel,  1 15 
zereth,  291 
Zereth,  262 


Zeruiah,  303 
Zili-Ishtar,  14 1 n. 

Zimran,  236 
Zimri,  83  n.,  299 
Zimrida,  83  n.,  220,  228  and 
231 

Zimri-rabi,  75,  83  in 
Zinjerli,  212,  243  n.,  319 
Zi-shamimi,  232  n. 

Zi-tatna,  232  n. 

Zitri-yara,  222  n. 

Zoar,  162,  193 
Zuzim,  148 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS  REFERRED  TO 


Amiaud,  35 

Arnold,  Will.  R.,  66  and  n. 
Astruc,  8 

Baxter,  15 
Bezold,  326  n. 

Bleek,  7 
Bondi,  291 

Chabas,  257 
Cheyne,  292  n.,  295  f. 

Cornill,  3 

Dangin,  v.  Thureau 
Delattre,  214  n. 

Delitzsch,  Franz,  310,  312  n. 
Delitzsch,  Friedr.,  56,  120,  122, 
141,  160  n.,  206,  208  n 300 
Dillmann,  15,  20  f.,  202,  308  n. 

fibers,  237  n. , 257 
Erman,  49  n. , 280  11. 

Euting,  212,  271,  276 
Ewald,  7 

Fries,  ix. 

Georges,  8 n. 

(Baser,  38,  48,  76,  77,  78,  80,  go, 
99,  206  and  n.,  237,  240,  241 
and  246,  247  n.,  248,  249, 
250  n.y  260  n.y  270,  272  n.y 
277  n.,  292  n.y  313  f.,  317  n., 
322  ff. 

Golenischeff,  14 1 n. 

Graf,  7,  13,  26 
Green,  18,  19 

Gunkel,  182,  308  309,  310 


Guthe,  15  n. 

Gutschmid,  133 

Halevy,  12 1 
Haynes,  166  n. 

Hilprecht,  38  «.,  97,  104,  120, 

121  «.,  122,  123,  128  n.,  129, 
166  n.,  172,  234  n. 

Holzinger,  21  n. 

Hupfeld,  7 

Jastrow,  258  n. 

Jensen,  209  234  n. 

Justi,  6 f. 

Kautzsch,  15  «.,  21 
Kittel,  20  n. 

Klostermann,  9 n.,  10,  13  19, 

243  *•,  251 
Kosters,  23 
Kuenen,  7,  164 

Lagarde,  242  n. 

Lagrange,  172 
Luschan,  212 

Maspero,  49  120 

Meissner,  69,  97,  98  99  «. 

Meyer,  Ed.,  22  ff.,  160.  164 
Mordtmann,  274  n.r  276  317  n. 

Muller,  D.  H.,  243  n.,  312  n. 
Muller,  W.  Max,  46  47,  209  «., 

219  226  n.,  240  n. , 254  «., 

25S  «• 

Nestle,  v. 

Niebuhr,  Carl,  120,  122 
Noldeke,  7 ».,  159,  198 


AUTHORS  REFERRED  TO 


348 

Oppert,  120 

Peiser,  112,  120,  124,  128,  132  ff., 
142 

Perles,  312  n. 

Peters,  166  n. 

Petrie,  257 

Pinches,  43,  88  f.,  94,  104,  105, 
1 12,  121,  143,  172,  179,  182,  194 
Pognon,  89 

Rawlinson,  H.,  159 
Revillout,  13 1 
Reuss,  7,  13,  26 

Sarzec,  34 

Sayce,  18,  41  n.,  89  ff.,  171  tt. 
Scheil,  38  «.,  44,  hi,  172  ff., 
234  3X7 

Schmidt,  Nath.,  258  tt. 

Schrader,  112  n. 


Smith,  G.,  160 
Spartoli,  179 
Stade,  2,  7 tt. 

Strassmaier,  69 

Thureau-Dangin,  237  tt. 

Vatke,  7,  13 

Wellhausen,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  10,  13, 
26,  27,  164.  198  f.,  223,  284, 
288  tt. , 296  f. , 300,  308,  316 
Wette,  7 

Winckler,  92  n. , 97,  120,  122,  123, 
128,  133,  144  *.,  189,  214,  230 
261,  262  ».,  325  n. 

Zenner,  312  tt. 

Zimmern,  182,  214  «.,  229  tt. , 308 
310  n. 


LIST  OF  BIBLICAL  PASSAGES 
REFERRED  TO 


Genesis  ii.  10-14,  263  «.,  313  ff. 
x.  22-24,  256,  292,  295 
x.  26,  III 

x.  27,314 

xi.  10,  292,  295 
xi.  ff.,  256 

xi.  19,  206  n. 
xi.  21,  207 
xi.  31,  325 

xiv.  43  f.,  158  ff.,  193,  196 
xiv.  16-24,  146  156  f. 

xvi.  7,  242 
xvi.  12,  238 

xvi.  14,  207  242 

xvii.  1,  109 
xvii.  5,  275 
XX.  1,  242 

xxii.  22,  210,  293  n. 

xxiv.  62,  242 

xxv.  269 
XXV.  3,  238 
xxv.  8,  243 
XXV.  II,  242 
xxv.  18,  238,  315 
xxxv.  7,  194 
XXXV.  II,  109 
XXXV.  27-29,  202 

xxxvi.  220  ».,  261  f.,  272 
xxxvi.  11,  249  n. 
xxxvii.  269 

xlvi.  17,  233  n .,  258  n. 
xlvii.  II,  228  n. 
xlix.  266 

Exodus  i.  13,  227 
iii.  14,  101 
vi.  18,  233 
vi.  22,  298 


Exodus  vi.  25,  293 
xii.  14,  291 

xii.  38,  257,  267  n. 
xiv.  6,  265  n. 

xvi.  15,  274  n . 
xviii.  12,  276 
xviii.  19  ff.,  276 

xix.  15,  321  n. 

xx.  24,  287 
xxviii.  17-20,  281 
xxviii.  30,  281 

xxx.  1 ff.,  277 

xxxi.  2,  300 
Leviticus  ii.  9,  277 

ii.  16,  277 

vi.  19,  321 

xvi.  278 

Numbers  i.  297  ff. 

iii.  30,  298 
vi:  25,  72 

vii.  297  ff. 

xiii.  297  ff.,  301 

xxi.  20,  272 
xxiv.  20,  246 

xxiv.  21-24,  243 

xxv.  14,  299 

xxv.  15,  319  n. 

xxvi.  24,  1 10  tt. 
xxvi.  32,  99 
xxvi.  36,  232  n. 
xxvi.  45,  233  n. 
xxxiv.  297  n. 
xxxiv.  20,  98 

Deuteronomy  ii.  12,  261 
xi.  10,  227 

xvii.  12,  284 
xviii.  1-8,  284 


350  BIBLICAL  PASSAGES  REFERRED  TO 


Deuteronomy  xviii.  6 ff. , 282 
xx.  2,  287 
xxiii.  17,  1 13 
xxvi.  5,  201 
xxviii.  49  f , 244 
xxviii.  68,  11,  263  f. 
xxxii.  4,  318 
xxxiii.  266 
xxxiv.  5-7,  285 
Joshua  x.  3,  221 
x.  33,  221 

x.  41,  225 

xi.  16,  225 

xiii.  2,  240 
xiii.  19,  262 
xiii.  24,  253  n. 

xiii.  27,  253 
xv.  3,  262 
XV.  24,  241 
xv.  27,  242 

xv.  51,  225,  241 

xvi.  3,  238  n. 
xix.  26,  241 

xxiv.  2 f.,  254  «.,  325 
xxiv.  14  f.,  256  n. 
Judges  ii.  11,  303 
iii.  6,  303 

viii.  24,  269 

ix.  26,  303  n. 

x.  12,  249,  270 

1 Samuel  ii.  2,  318 

xiv.  3,  284 

xv.  7>  239 
xxvii.  8,  240  f. 
xxvii.  10,  242,  244  n. 
xxx.  29,  244 

2 Samuel  ii.  9,  240 

viii.  9,  232  n. 
x.  16,  204,  254  322 

xv.  37,  154 
xxii.  318 


1 Kings  iv.  21,  251,  254 

iv.  23,  252 
iv.  24,  252,  325 
xiv.  15,  254  n. 

2 Kings  xiv.  2,  319  n. 

1 Chronicles  i.  ff.,  301  n. 

i.  17-24,  292 

i.  36,  249  n. 
iv.  34,  10 1 

vii.  2,  98 

vii.  31,  233  n. 

vii.  32  f. , 238  ti. 

2 Chronicles  xiv.  314  n. 
Job  i.  15,  17,  247  n. 

ii.  11,  249 
Psalms  xviii.  318 

xxviii.  1,  71  n. 
xxxvii.  7,  71  n. 

1.  31,  71  n. 
lxxxi.  6,  hi  n. 

Ixxxix.  14,  310 
xci.  1,  310 
cx.  4,  152 
Isaiah  xiv.  12,  115 
xxii.  6,  205 

Jeremiah  vii.  22  ff.,  15,  16 
xliii.  7,  251  n. 

Ezekiel  xxiii.  23,  206  n. 
xl.  3,  285 
xliv.  9 ff. , 283 
Daniel  x.  4,  314 
Hosea  i.  9,  101  «. 

viii.  12,  16 

viii.  13,  11 

ix.  3,  11,  263  f. 

Amos  v.  25,  15 

ix.  7,  205 

Habakkuk  ii.  20,  71  «. 
Acts  vii.  42,  15 
Hebrews  v.  10,  146 
vii.  1-3,  152 


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